


My name is Sarah

by womanroaring



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: 30-something Sarah, F/M, Sarah has her shit together, mature Sarah
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-12
Updated: 2017-10-19
Packaged: 2018-03-07 06:57:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 35,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3165614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/womanroaring/pseuds/womanroaring
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Series of short (and not so short) stories written for the Labyfic community challenge prompts on LiveJournal, as part of an ongoing storyline about Jareth coming back into Sarah's life when she's older. </p><p>Not all chapters include mature content... though most do.</p><p>Chapter 1: 3854 words</p><p>Obviously, this is a work of fanfiction and I own nothing.</p><p>UPDATE: Sorry. For those playing along at home, I made chapter 9 a drabble. The existing chapter 9 is now chapter 10.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. An unexpected guest

My name is Sarah. You know my story. My brother was taken and I took him back. I made friends and I kept them. I still see them sometimes. They promised to be there when I need them. And they are.

That happens less and less, now. I’m grown up. I teach, at quite a good university. A literature course called “The Good Folk: The fantastical in fiction”. You know, _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_ , _Pinocchio_ , _Peter Pan_. Irish mythology. Fairy tales. I shake it up when the faculty tells me it isn’t edgy enough. There’s some really good young adult fiction coming out now. A lot of soft porn, too. I don’t cover that.

And I avoid goblins.

Occasionally a student wants to discuss the idea that the paranormal, the unnatural and the preternatural do actually exist. I avoid being drawn into these conversations. I remind them that we are covering fiction. But I suspect that any students who know the truth avoid my subject altogether.

My experience doesn’t define me. But I still love the stories. I did before. Their ring of truth still calls to me as it did then. 

I wonder sometimes how many other baby brothers were taken by the goblins after me. How many were retrieved. Sometimes I am jealous. Sometimes I just pray for those children. But silently. You never know who is listening.

I never ask my old friends, on those occasions when I see them. Sometimes they visit at strange times, and I only realise when they appear in my mirror that I needed them, and invite them across it.

It isn’t the same mirror that they first appeared in, after my victory over the goblin king. I am a woman in my 30s now; I have my own home. But I never lost the desire for a dressing table that my theatrical mother gave me. Especially when a large mirror is necessary for when friends want to stop by.

But they cannot be my only support. I have my family. I have friends, human ones. They commiserate when I have work troubles or money troubles or man troubles. I was considering calling one now, Jane, to tell her about a disastrous lunch date I had had, where the guy had done nothing but complain about his ex-wife, followed by a terrible departmental meeting that left me feeling so deflated, I couldn’t even decide whether or not I could face speaking to anyone.

Apparently they’re sick of being the faculty that runs that “hippie kiddie lit” course. They didn’t care how popular it was with the students, they were asking me to strongly consider teaching a course on the supernatural in Shakespeare instead.

I’d have to include _Hamlet_. I hate _Hamlet_. No hero, no love, no happy ending. Just a bunch of dead bodies at the end.

For someone who spends so much of her time reading and teaching about magic, and romance, there had been very little of it in my life lately. Especially today.

I poured myself a glass of wine and absent-mindedly sat down with it at my dressing table, playing with my phone and pulling up Jane’s number. I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and looked up.

The goblin king was in my mirror.

I knocked over my chair, I got up so quickly, as I turned to see if he was actually in the room.

He was.

I was terrified.

I hadn’t seen him since our encounter when I was a teenager.

And he was still so handsome. He hadn’t aged a day in 20 years; there he was, the same.

Maybe not quite the same. No glitter. No lipgloss. His hair wasn’t as enormous or as long. Well, it wasn’t the 80s any more. But there he was, just standing there, in boots and tight dark pants, and a loose, open shirt, gazing at me with his head cocked slightly to one side. Patiently. As though he could have waited for hours for me to notice his presence in my bedroom.

“Hello, Sarah,” he said.

I swallowed and took a deep breath. I would not let my voice shake. “You were not invited into my home. Why are you here?”

Jareth looked down, playing with the cuff of one of his sleeves, smoothing it over his glove. Gloves. He still wore gloves.

I had forgotten about the gloves.

“Because I _was_ invited, actually. Many years ago, as you may recall, one of my less loyal subjects promised that we would all be there for you, should you need us. It turned out that tonight, you needed me.”  He looked back up, the tiniest hint of a smirk playing about his mouth.

He took a graceful step forward.

I took a step back. And hit the dressing table.

He took my hand, tutting. It made his mouth pout a little.

I needed to stop looking at his mouth. Eyes, eyes, concentrate on the eyes.

“It seems,” he went on, turning my hand over in his own -- I couldn’t guess what sort of leather his gloves were made from but they were soft as butter -- “that there is some service that I might do for you. Do you know what that could be?”

He brought my wrist to his mouth and kissed it, his eyes never leaving mine.

I didn’t break out in goosebumps; they exploded over me. I actually shivered.

I ripped my hand away, edging away from the dresser and trying to de-corner myself. “I cannot imagine what you could possibly do for me. There are no children here that you can steal from their beds.” I spat the words out, I was so angry, but then a horrible idea came into my head. “And don’t you dare go near brother --”

“I am not here for your brother. I couldn’t care less about your brother. I am here because your need summoned me.”

“My --” I stared at him, unable to complete the sentence, trying to remember what I had been thinking of before he had appeared while I inched further away from him. He merely rotated to orient himself to my new direction. Like a sunflower.

“I have been puzzling over what I might be able to do for you,” he said, “and then I noticed how very empty your bed was looking this evening. And it seemed that there was one piece of unfinished business between us.”

“You can’t possibly -- you’re here to _seduce_ me?”

“You were right to deny me before. You were so young. And now I find you even more beautiful than you were as a girl and I feel that the time might be right.”

He had closed the distance between us again and was stroking the side of my face. I was rooted to the spot. I couldn’t seem to catch my breath but when he buried his face in my neck and my knees attempted to buckle, I found I could move after all. I evaded an arm that had come up to embrace me and managed two steps away from him, putting my hand up between us, pointing it accusing in the firmest way I could, which wasn’t very.

“You terrorised me. You exposed me to terrible danger, you threatened me and my family, you poisoned me with _fruit_ \--”

“Not poison, Sarah,” he said. His voice still managed to sound reproachful and playful at the same time. The sound of it almost made my knees buckle again. “Just magic. And you really should have known better than to eat anything in a fairyland.”

Once again he somehow snuck into my personal space. He stroked my neck with those soft gloves and I couldn’t believe the unfairness of life, that I should be forced to resist this man again. This man who seemed created just to attract me. Just for me.

But I had to resist him. I had to be strong enough. I couldn’t remember why, though, not with his hands on me. Why was I so angry with him? Oh yes.

“You did not deal with me in good faith,” I said. My voice came out so level; it gave me courage.

Was there any reason not to consider his offer?

“You are going to give up a night of pleasure at the hands of the goblin king because, all those years ago, I did not deal with you in good faith?” He asked. Again, he did not exactly sound mocking. He sounded… like he knew that he would win and he was enjoying the repartee that always came before his quarry gave in. But his eyes looked slightly wary. I had, as he said, refused him before. I wondered why he had not schooled his eyes as well as his voice.

Oh, that voice.

“I do not trust you,” I said, and once again, my voice betrayed none of the mayhem I was feeling as he ran his hands along my collarbones and then through my hair. I took a step backwards and his mouth twisted slightly in displeasure as he dropped his hands to his sides.

“Well, then, Sarah, let me allay your fears. What exactly are you so afraid of?”

What was I afraid of? A horrible thought occurred to me.

“You never appeared in my mirror before, much less my bedroom. And you were never this patient with me. I infuriated you. You were scornful. And patronising. And imperious. So I can’t even be sure that you really are Jareth.”

I partly said it just to piss him off. I really did think it was him. But, after a second where he looked completely taken aback, his eyes moved sideways evasively.

Oh my god.

There was a strange goblin in my room with the face of their king, come to ravish me. For god knew what reason.

My goosebumps retreated as my stomach turned to cement and I backed towards the door, thinking of what I had in my house that I could use as a weapon to defend myself. I never had managed to work out if it was iron or silver you were supposed to use against the fey. I could have sworn that I saw both in the goblin city.

“Wait,” he said, putting out his hand in supplication. “Sarah, I am Jareth, I swear it. I merely paused to consider how much to tell you.” He straightened his spine a little. “The fact is that another of my subjects, one of my young lordlings, very nearly came to you tonight instead of me.”

If I hadn’t already felt like a bucket of water had been tipped on me, I certainly felt that way now. He started pulling on the fingers of his right glove as he continued. His tone was conversation now.

“Yes, it seems that as the goblin king, I am not forced to answer the call of humans in the way that lesser fey are. I had felt your pull, but I _had_ assumed it was my own fancy, and when I did not immediately respond to it, it captured one of my noblemen. He did bear a resemblance to me, which I found interesting.”

I shuddered.

“Not in any way that would have tricked you. I think it would have suggested me to you, though. Possibly you may have found his appearance less threatening than my own, but I still did not believe that you would have been willing to share your bed with a strange goblin and, either way, I certainly could never have countenanced such an attempt.”

He pulled off his glove.

I had never seen his bare hands before. It felt so intimate. This one looked like polished alabaster, like a sculptor had carved it to be a fantasy of a beautiful, long-fingered hand. Except for a nasty patch of broken skin, with adjacent bruising, spread across two of his knuckles.

He held his hand up to display the wound.

“He was quite insistent on answering your call. I may have been forced to break his jaw to conclude the point.”

He tossed his glove carelessly on the floor.

“He will have healed by the morning. We both will. Now, to prove that I am the real goblin king,” he said, and, using his left hand, conjured a crystal sphere and held it out to me. I saw a glimpse of a ballroom, of a white dress. There was a lot of glitter.

“Yes, that will do,” I said, averting my eyes but also sagging in relief.

“I don’t remember being patronising to you during that particular hour,” he said, contemplating the globe in his hand. “Or scornful.”

He twisted his hand and the little ball vanished. He paced towards me; again, it was so graceful, I had trouble seeing him coming until he was right there, stroking my shoulder with his bare hand while he murmured in my ear.  

“I offered you the moon. And the sky. I asked you to choose a path between the stars with me,” he whispered, before he placed a very gentle kiss on my neck, just under my ear.

And I didn’t push him away. Partly because I felt like I was suddenly made entirely of jelly and partly, I confess, because the thinking portion of my brain was very unromantically churning away, trying to think of a way that this could be a terrible, terrible mistake.

Finally, I managed to say, “What will I risk, if I take you into my bed on this night?”

He smiled, I think purely at the sound of those words coming out of my mouth (they were more breathless than I had intended). Or possibly because they showed that his offer was interesting enough to me that I had questions. He pulled back a fraction of an inch so that he could look into my eyes, those long fingers taking up residence where his mouth had been.  

“Well, two things might happen, Sarah, that you may consider an inconvenience. The first is that you may be ruined for human men after you taste the pleasures I can offer you.”

I realised that my breathing had become very shallow. I took a deep breath, not caring any more that he would notice, and tried to slow my heartbeat down as I felt him tracing my jawline.

“You do not actually need to fear this,” he went on. “Should it happen, your need would call me again and you would not have to… go without.”

I swallowed. My mouth had gone dry. “And the second?”

His smile became wider. “Why, Sarah, the second is that, after giving me this chance to finally court you, you may fall in love with me.”

“And this would be an inconvenience?”

“You have refused to do it thus far, my precious Sarah,” he said, resuming his nuzzling of my neck. Honestly, the shivers down my spine? I could feel them to my toes at this point. I couldn’t breathe. And yet I was remaining desperately passive and still, partly because I was still trying to spot the rub and partly because I was afraid that if I moved, it would only be to tear his clothes off like they had mortally offended me and wrap myself around the man like a monkey.

But I couldn’t see the trick. I couldn’t see where the bitter pill would be.

“Am I asking the right questions?” He pulled back and quirked his eyebrow at me, and I tried a different tack. “What would you ask if you were in my place?”

“I would ask me to take me right here and not bother waiting to get to the bed. But we may bruise our knees on the floor. It would be an impulsive decision.”

“But you’re counting on me to make an impulsive decision. You --” again, another horrible thought occurred to me. “Oh, god. Am I actually able to say no to you, tonight? Or is this --”

I didn’t need to finish the sentence. He had understood my full meaning and had let me go, his eyes blazing and his mouth set in an angry line.

“Your need called me here and I came,” he said, his voice descending into a low snarl. “But I am not a common fairy to bewitch a maid to lie with me against her will. I have never yet forced myself upon a woman and I do not intend to begin now.”

He had taken a breath to continue but I cut him off.

“That sounds more like you,” I said, with a small smile. He pushed me up against the wall in response.

“Shall I stay, or shall I go, my lady?” He growled against my lips.

“I think you’d better stay,” I said, and then I kissed him like I wanted to break through to the other side. He made a growling sound that may have been relief, or triumph, or plain lust, or all three. I couldn’t tell you which it was. I was busy.

Several hours later, as I lay in my bed, spent and satisfied, with a masculine nature deity wrapped around me, stroking my hair and making me feel even sleepier, I decided that it had all been a great idea. “How long will you stay?” I asked him drowsily, snuggling in for the night.

“You have me until the dawn,” he said in a low voice, then kissing the back of my head.

I nodded and settled down to sleep. “I still don’t trust you, you know,” I said, turning slightly and opening my eyes briefly to smile tartly up at him.

His pleased chuckle was the last thing I heard before I fell asleep.

I woke up slightly after the dawn, with a feeling of something missing beside me. He was, indeed, gone, as promised.

I stretched. Muscles hurt that I didn’t even know I had. It’s possible I had never used them before. It had certainly been a night of new experiences.

The hot water in the shower helped. I thought about my day, thinking how absurd it was to go to work after such a night. How absurd it was that the world hadn’t fallen down around me. That my neighbour, who I waved to on my way out the door, didn’t know.

_I made love for hours with a mythical king and it was so incredible, there were moments when I didn’t even know where I was or what was happening._

Maybe not the best conversation starter.

My friend Jane texted me on the way in to work, wanting to meet up for coffee at 10. She probably wanted to know how my date went yesterday, I thought, realising it felt like a million years ago.

I arrived at work to an email from the head of department, wanting me to come and see him at 10am (neither of us had classes this morning) about his Shakespearean suggestion of the day before. I rolled my eyes and typed back that I’d see him at 10.30. I got out a note pad and started jotting down some dot points. They were pretty in-depth, but it was like the idea had been just sitting in my brain, waiting. I wasn’t even late to meet Jane.

“Wow,” she said, when I sat down. “You’re -- Sarah, you’re _glowing_. Yesterday’s lunch went well, then?”

I laughed. “No, actually. It was terrible. I won’t be seeing him again. Never mind. And then my boss told me he wants to kill my course. But it’s ok, I have a plan.”

“Geez. I’d ask if you’re all right, but -- Sarah, you look great. Did something else happen?”

“Well. I did have a visitor last night. From my past. You don’t know him and I don’t really think I should talk about it --”

“Oh my god, Sarah, you had a booty call? My romantic Sarah had a _booty call_?”

“Let’s not call it that. It wasn’t like that at all. Anyway, I want to show you what I’ve written up for my boss,” I said, thrusting my notes at her.

She loved it so much I felt even more confident knocking on my boss’s door when we were done.

“Ah, Sarah,” he said, “Please, take a seat. Have you thought about my proposal from yesterday? You know, the themes you teach won’t change that much at all --”

I cut him off.

“I have thought about it, Bill, and my answer is no. The students aren’t going to want to take that Shakespeare course. That course sounds boring. My classes are not only hugely popular, they have some of the highest attendance levels in the whole faculty. So I have a better idea,” I said, putting down three sheets of paper in front of him. I pointed at the first one.

“My course, updated, to include more young adult fiction and a new week on poetry. Christina Rossetti’s _Goblin Market_ should have been on my syllabus for years. We’re losing _Midsummer Night’s Dream_ and _Peter Pan_ to this course here, to be taught in the following semester,” I said, pointing to the second sheet of paper, across which I’d scrawled “The Fey on stage and screen”.

I saw him look down the list of titles I’d included on that page. “ _Willow_ , _Legend --_ they’re pretty old movies. You think kids will want to study these?”

I gave him a hard look. “They’re classics. They’ll watch them, I can promise you,” I said, and I pointed to the third piece of paper.

He glanced at it and visibly jumped. I don’t blame him. I’d titled it “Fucking the Fey: fairy tales for adults in the 21st century.”

He looked slightly terrified as he skimmed down the page. “Laurell K. Hamilton, Sookie Stackhouse, _Lost Girl_ \-- these are all about sex with fairies?”

I nodded. “I won’t be teaching that one, by the way,” I said. “I suggest you ask Maria Tasconi, the goth tutor from the vampire fiction course. She’s been here for years and deserves a step up. I know she’s familiar with the subject matter and she can put it in a context of the trend towards sexualising the supernatural in general.”

He sat back in his chair. “Three courses on fairies,” he said weakly. “One on erotica!”

I nodded. “Apparently it’s what we want in this day and age. It’s really what we’ve always wanted; magic and romance. It’s just that the erotic is very … overt, right now, culturally. Either way, it’s something you can throw in the face of the next closed-minded old man who teases you for being in charge of a department that includes courses on “fairy kiddie lit”. Hugely popular courses.”

He rubbed his hands over his face in a baffled sort of way and told me he’d have to think about it.

But I knew I’d won as I closed the door behind me.

I heard an owl hoot nearby as I walked back to my office.

I ignored him.


	2. I didn't mean to let this happen again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jareth turns up unexpectedly AGAIN, because Sarah needed something from him.
> 
> Word count: 6036

I put down my phone.

Well, _crap_.

My name is Sarah, and you know my story. The goblins stole my brother and I won him back. That was a long time ago. I may have slept with the goblin king since then. Like, say, a few months ago. I try not to think about it too much. I sometimes pretend it was all a dream.

A lovely, lovely dream.

I could do with something lovely now, though. I’d had a phone call from my friend Jane. From her bathroom.

“Yeah, look Sarah, you know I wouldn’t normally call you from the toilet,” she had said, “but I can’t actually get off it. Oh god, I have to call you back.”

Usually I would have found this inappropriate and a bit gross but today I could understand why. I would have preferred a text, maybe, but the fact remained that a bout of gastro meant that there was very little possibility that she would be able to come with me to my friend Lauren’s wedding this afternoon, as my “date”. Otherwise known as your person to talk to while stuck on a table full of cosy couples all night. Someone you could murmur to about meringue dresses and Bon Jovi bridal waltzes with.  And dance with, should it come to that, so that you aren’t stuck at an empty table like a throbbing, sore single thumb.

In this case, I suspected said table would be full of the bride’s other uni friends, few of which I was particularly friends with and all of which were married. The one I _was_ friends with would actually be the most excruciating, unfortunately. Beth had a perfect job, a perfect house, a perfect family. And she had worked bloody hard to get those things. I didn’t begrudge her them and I wasn’t jealous or envious of anything she had. My job was fine, my flat was fine and I was happier single than settling for some jerk.

But, somehow or other, being at a wedding, people ask you about your life. They ask invasive questions that sound judgemental when they’re really just desperate for something to say. They ask you when your turn to throw the bouquet will be. They ask you if your biological clock is ticking. They ask you all sorts of things it would be incredibly rude and insensitive to ask otherwise, because it is somehow on topic.

In a mild panic, I had texted a few other friends to see if they were able to make it at the last minute.

They weren’t.

I took a deep breath. Well, I thought. I’ll just go alone.

I sat down at my dressing table to see what I could do with my hair and noticed that the goblin king was in my mirror.

I may have laid my head down on the table.

“Hello, Sarah,” he said behind me. I sat up and turned around a bit.

“I don’t need this right now. I’m getting ready to go out.”

“Yes, you look very nice,” he said, looking me up and down. It was a nice dress. It plunged down just enough to look glamorous without actually showing that much; and it did the same at the back, which made it look sort of 30s. I liked it a lot. But I wasn’t going to let compliments sidetrack me.

“Did you hear me? I’m going out. I’m not staying here and having sex with you for hours. I have to go to a wedding and my date just cancelled and -- oh, god.”

Facepalm. Both hands.

“Are you here to be my date for the wedding?” I asked, my voice slightly muffled through my fingers. “Because no. Just no.”

I dropped my hands and looked up. He was smirking at me. Part of my brain wondered how he managed to look so attractive even while smirking. The rest went into panic mode.

“You can’t possibly mean to come with me.”

He waved his hand in a sort of “these things are up to the fates” kind of way. “I answered your call, my lady. You needed something from me. I came. Although I would have dressed differently if I had realised there was a wedding involved.”

I conceded the point. He was wearing a soft grey shirt that I would have described as mostly undone if it hadn’t seemed designed that way. It was tucked into charcoal pants that were, as usual, much too tight. And boots.

Stop looking at the boots. Eyes, eyes, look at the eyes.

Those _eyes_.

“Are you wearing eyeliner?”

He ignored my question. “What would you like me to wear?”

“Something normal. Men wear suits to weddings. With really ugly, boring ties. That still don’t go with their shirts, somehow.”

I threw my hands up.

“What am I saying? No. No! You aren’t going to distract me with clothes. You are not coming with me. I am not going to expose those people to you. And as if you have any normal clothes anyway.”

He tilted his head to the side. No, he cocked it. And started stalking towards me.

“You do know that the fey go among humans often, don’t you? That we pass? That no one ever, ever suspects?”

I goggled at him. Just a bit. He took my face in his hands and kissed my forehead.

I only closed my eyes for a second but when I opened them, he was dressed in a blacker-than-black suit, with a flawless white shirt and a thin black tie. He looked like a fashion plate.

I couldn’t help it; I looked down at his shoes. No laces. I suspected that he was still wearing boots of some kind under there.

I covered my face in my hands again.

“This is so unfair,” I said.

“Do you not wish me to accompany you?”

I uncovered my face. “Fine. Fine! But you’re going to look better than the groom, I can promise you. You certainly look better than me.”

He turned me to face the mirror.

“Oh,” I said.

My hair was done in one of those designs that looked deceptively simple and would have taken hours, all twists and soft curls. And I was wearing the most enormous gold necklace -- well, collar, really, and huge bracelets. They looked like the sort of thing I would never be able to afford. Though they did lend quite a lot of borrowed glamour to my dress, which now looked like it cost three times as much as it had.

“No.” I said, holding out my wrists and closing my eyes. I felt a weight lift off them. I put a hand up. The collar was still there.

“And this,” I said, motioning to it. He gave me a pained look, but when I looked in the mirror, it was gone. He’d replaced it with an absolutely gorgeous filigree necklace; asymmetrical but balanced, with two crystals hanging in a gap at the front. It looked ancient and delicate and I loved it. I noticed him noticing me love it and turned to face him.

“Where has this stuff even come from?” I asked. “Is there a museum or Parisian jewellery shop or something that’s going to miss this in the morning?”

He gave me another pained look. “No, Sarah. They are mine to give, part of the collection meant for the goblin queen.”

The queen.

I suddenly felt like a stupid little girl playing dress ups.

I put my hand up to the beautiful necklace, trying to work out how to take it off. Within an instant, his hands were over mine, preventing me. I shook my head and started to say, incoherently, “I have no right, I -” but he just chuckled.

“Sarah,” he said. “The castle has a whole suite of rooms full of jewels, of gowns, of precious items, waiting for the time when a queen lives there again. Look,” he said, gesturing, and suddenly my room was full of mannequins in ornate dresses, my bed covered in intricate lacquered boxes. I opened one tentatively; Elizabeth Taylor would have killed for the emerald and diamond necklace inside, except it looked like it was made of bronze, not gold.

I touched the nearest dress, made of layers of the thinnest lace over some soft fabric. I loved it. Then I noticed something.

“They -- they look like they’re my size,” I said stupidly.

“Of course they’re your size, Sarah.”

I looked at him. He cocked his head at me but didn’t elaborate.

“So you’re telling me you have rooms waiting for me. And clothes. In the goblin castle.”

“They’re for the queen.”

Wow.

That was so romantic.

And creepy.

I blushed in confusion.

“You know that you’re a psycho and a stalker, right?” I said. He just smiled. Widely. All the stuff was gone when I glanced over again. I put my hand up to my throat. The necklace was still there. I felt less like I shouldn’t be wearing it.

“Is this safe for me to wear? It isn’t magic or -”

“That necklace will cause you no problems. It is just wrought metal and crystal.”

“Not … magic crystal?”

He looked at me with pursed lips. “No.” He finally said.

“Fine,” I said, sitting back down at my dressing table and reaching for my lipstick. “We should agree on rules for tonight. If anyone asks, you’re just an old friend. Oh god, we need a whole back story.”

“No one is going to ask,” he said.

“No, you don’t understand, we’ll be stuck at a table with the one set of people for the whole dinner. They will ask. It will be small talk and catching up and boring questions like “so how do you two know each other -”

“Sarah. I do understand. But no human asks my kind questions like that. They may ask you, later. Tell them whatever you like.” He put his hands on my shoulders. “Why has this outing made you so tense? I would have thought you would like weddings.”

I slumped a little and tried to think of words that would explain how … _disappointing_ they were. “They should be romantic. But they’re just -- staged. They’re rehearsed and plotted and fake. Pretend spontaneous photographs and forced bridal waltzes to awful songs. Boring speeches that go on for too long and awkward attempts at originality.

“And so much small talk. I hate small talk. I want to talk about interesting things, about how it’s possible that the lost Atlantis is actually Antarctica, how the Fibonacci sequence recurs in nature, how solar flares can affect the Earth’s weather patterns. Oh,” I said, as something occurred to me. “The ceremony. It’s in the park.”

He looked at me.

“In the daylight? We’ll be outside, in the sun.”

He continued to look at me. Eventually he raised his eyebrows.

“Won’t that … be a problem?” I asked, sheepish now.

“I am not a vampire, Sarah.”

“Fine. What should I be worrying about, then?”

“Sarah. All will be well. Paint your face and let us be on our way. We wouldn’t want to be late.”

I put my lipstick on and picked up my bag.

“And no stealing any children,” I said, as I picked up my bag. He gave me a stern look and took my arm.

Next thing I knew we were at the park.

“We could have taken my _car_ ,” I said. He merely tilted his head by way of reply.

“We’re _early_ ,” I complained.

“There are ways we could pass the time,” he murmured, moving the slightest bit closer.

“Hi Beth!” I said loudly, waving to my friend with one hand, while prodding him away from me with the other.

“Friend.” I hissed at him. “You’re supposed to be here as my _friend_. People are going to notice if my friend spends the night trying to undress me -- Beth, you look beautiful.”

I took her hands and kissed her on the cheek. I opened my mouth to ask her what she’d done with her children but decided not to risk it in present company. I glared at Jareth before introducing him. As a friend.

He smiled charmingly and shook her hand. He smiled charmingly and shook every hand offered.

And nobody asked him what he did or how we knew each other.

He was being an absolute paragon, actually. When I teared up during the ceremony, he produced the crispest, softest handkerchief I’d ever seen. And he didn’t even smirk. His mouth only twitched slightly.

We got to the reception without the slightest hiccup. It was all starting to make me a bit nervous. So when I was handed a glass of champagne by a very young waiter, I may have gulped half of it down in one. And then, of course, choked. Jareth rubbed my back solicitously. “Mmm. It is a little … young,” he said, taking a sip of his own and then making a small gesture that I had dismissed as conversational until he murmured, “Try it now.”

I frowned at him and took a much smaller sip. It was the best champagne I had ever tasted. Which certainly had not been the case before.

“Am I about to start hallucinating?” I demanded. “Am I going to have to search the whole room before finding you draped in other women?”

He grinned at me. He actually grinned. For a second it was like he was trying not to, but then he decided to just go with it.

It made him look hungry.

“It’s just champagne, Sarah.”

So we stood there, sipping our drinks, and it occurred to me that being stuck at a table making small talk wasn’t my biggest anxiety, not now. It wasn’t even the idea that anyone would notice that Jareth was clearly not simply a friend.

I was stuck at a table with Jareth all night. A Jareth that grinned.

What the hell would we talk about?

We had never actually spent that much time in each other’s company. He had apparently stalked and spied on me in my teens before my visit to his Labyrinth, but that hardly counted, and the night we had spent together more recently, after a 20-year stint, consisted of a short bout of arguing and negotiating before a long bout of nakedness and then sleep. Conversation hadn’t really been a stand-out feature.

The more I thought of it, the happier I was that the table would be full of people asking what I was doing now and where I was living.

I watched Jareth take another sip of his champagne as he watched people enter the room. His hands were so beautiful.

I had a vivid memory all of a sudden of those hands on me.

“I think you might be right,” he said. I started, and blushed again, wondering if I’d missed something. Finally I just said “About?”

“What you said before.”

“Oh, I am going to find you draped in women by the end of the night, am I? That’ll be pleasant.”

“About weddings,” he said, ignoring me. “This event _is_ strange and artificial. 150 years ago, everyone would have known each other at a wedding celebration. The bride would have put on her best dress and gone to the local church and been married by the same priest who had christened her and everyone she knew. A few close friends would have come to celebrate with the family and that would have been that.

“A big event like this would only have been organised for a very important wedding, being used to cement a family tie for some diplomatic or trade reason, to demonstrate wealth and respect and status. And therefore this awkward standing around in the middle of the proceedings would have been a social disaster. There would have been entertainment, if only to give people something to look at and talk about.”

I couldn’t help asking. “When the Fair Folk marry, what are those weddings like?”

He was quiet for a moment, then tilted his head at me. “I have no idea what a common wedding is like, but I can show you what a royal one would look like,” he said, producing one of his damned crystal spheres. I glanced around; no one was watching.

I looked back at it. I was so curious, but I didn’t want to even touch it. He saw me hesitate and smirked. “Here,” he said, putting his arm around me and holding it in front of my face so that we were both looking into it.

I saw a couple, ornately dressed in red, surrounded by so many people, in a chamber made of stone. I didn’t think all of them could be goblin nobles; I saw some small, some with wings, some with blue skin. The man put a crown on the woman’s head -- an ancient looking thing of blackened metal, with some pattern of tendrils and twigs and leaves -- and passed her a sceptre, which she took in her right hand. He took her left. “The goblin queen,” he said to the room, as they turned to face the crowd. There was a tumult of applause. But I could see their faces now. That was me, being presented to the crowd. By Jareth.

“You’re hilarious,” I said, pushing him away. He grabbed me again, his voice businesslike and innocent, gesturing with the ball at me. “You’re missing the feast.”

A huge animal was roasting on an enormous fire and an even bigger chamber, full of tables of guests and dancing girls and fire-twirlers. Enchanting music (probably literally) was playing and people were bringing us gifts. A young woman painted gold was pouring blood-red wine into pewter goblets for us. Or perhaps that was her natural skin colour. Jareth was muttering something in my ear. I couldn’t hear what it was but I would have bet both my legs it was filthy given the blush he raised. My red dress was really very tight; I’m surprised that vision-me wasn’t blushing already.

“Yes, yes, very good,” I said, looking up at him again, but he motioned with the ball insistently. “You’ve forgotten the best part.”

I glanced back reluctantly and immediately pushed him away again. I’d had an impression of a supremely large bed, draped in red again, and tangled limbs. We’d been very, very naked.

“Yes, well, I’ve seen that show,” I said, and grabbed another glass of champagne from a young waiter as we went past. I felt like fanning myself with my hand.

“Mmm,” he said, stroking my arm lightly with just with the back of one finger and making the nerve endings scream. “I’d like to see it again.”

“Fix my champagne,” I ordered, putting my glass between us and noticing Beth coming up behind us. I motioned with my head at her and he dropped the hand that was reaching for my face to my elbow instead. I raised my eyebrows at him to let him know what I thought of him trying to look gentlemanly when he just wanted to touch me.

Beth arrived in a flurry of silk and expensive perfume, with her husband on one arm and her pretty little evening bag on the other. “How did you get here before us?” She asked. “I was sure we passed you in the car and you were both still on foot. You must know a shortcut we don’t.”

We ignored the question as she took a tiny vol-au-vent from a passing waiter. I hate vol-au-vents. Best way to get bits of pastry all over your clothes that has ever been invented. And for what? A mouthful of lukewarm mushroom. Ug.

“We were just talking about the wine,” Jareth surprised me by saying to Beth’s lawyer husband, who was standing around looking awkward. “Have you been to the champagne region of France? Fascinating place.” It turned out that he had and I heard Jareth saying something about Roman caves before Beth lead my away by the elbow so that she could demand to know who Jareth was, exactly.

“He’s very … glamorous, isn’t he!” she said. “But you’re just friends! Does he … not like women?”

I snorted into my drink and coughed again. “He likes women, Beth. I couldn’t tell you what else he likes, but women are up there. Anyway, let’s not talk about him, not when he’s right over there. What have you been doing?”

Everything, it turned out. As we wandered back to our menfolk, she told me all about her recent trip overseas (“when you work such long hours, it’s nice to have a solid chunk that’s just quality family time”) and the masters degree she was trying to get her office to approve. While raising two children. She was just telling me about her attempts to get their downstairs bathroom updated when the bride and groom arrived and it was time to go in and sit down at our table.  

“Now, what’s happened to your course? Did you say you’d split it in half?” Beth asked, as Jareth held my chair for me. I sat as gracefully as I could, thinking he was just using it as an excuse to watch me sit down. I refused to look at him but heard him introduce himself to the people on his other side, Mary and Jeff, who I barely remembered.

“We did,” I said to Beth, “In two, with a third one that I helped the other lecturer create. They’re actually considering making me head of a new sub-department, supernatural fiction. It’s only six courses and the old bloke that teaches the gothic novel class is a bit annoyed about it, but the head of department is ignoring him.”

“And you said something about introducing poetry now? I thought poetry wasn’t cool with The Young People?” She said it as though it an official term.

“No, poetry’s back. But it’s kind of weird, it’s really performative now, poetry slams and stuff. I got one of the more theatrical tutors to read us the poems at the start of the lecture as melodramatically as possible, the kids loved it. It’s only a week anyway, just _The Dream of the Children_ and _Goblin Market_.”

“Interesting choice,” Jareth said over my shoulder. I jumped. I hadn’t realized he had stopped talking with the people on his other side.

“Which part?” I asked.

“ _Goblin Market_ ,” he said. “Isn’t that a bit … charged?”

“We must not look at goblin men, we must not buy their fruits ... Their offers should not charm us, Their evil gifts would harm us.” I quoted, looking at him with steel in my eyes. “I think there’s something in that for all of us.”

“I was thinking more about those two sisters, wrapped up in their little bed together. What is it that the good one says to the bad one -- “Come and kiss me. Suck my juices. Eat me, drink me, love me; make much of me.”

Beth, who had been taking a sip of water, took a big gulp, looking at me with wide eyes. I was back to wanting to fan myself. Particularly since he had started stroking my leg, very lightly, under the table with his hand. I pushed it away as discreetly as I could.

“Yes, we do examine the erotic language, thank you. It’s one of the more fascinating aspects, considering it was supposed to be a poem for children, which would lead one to conclude that Rossetti meant it innocently, except that she can’t possibly have been that oblivious, not with a brother like Gabriel. But she was also a deeply religious woman. It’s been suggested it’s an allegory for Christ’s love.”

“Mmm,” he said. “What’s that bit about the bad sister sucking the goblin fruit until her lips were sore?”

I made a face at him. “I’m going to the bathroom,” I said, getting up.

It turned out that the bathrooms were terribly fancy. I do like a fancy bathroom. They were off a nice little lounge area with lush deep couches, and a chaise longue or two, and a lot of big mirrors. I lingered in the lounge before I made to go back, allegedly checking my hair while wondering how I was going to cope for the rest of the night with innuendo so thick the whole table could have spread it on toast.

I felt eyes on me. I looked up and sure enough, he had stalked up behind me and was just reaching for one of the curls on the nape of my neck. 

"You followed me to the bathroom?” I demanded. “Really?"

"I missed you. And this isn't the bathroom,” he said, slightly chidingly. “That would have been ... indecorous." 

I turned around. He didn't step back. I stood my ground, even though I suspected it would give me a sore neck after a minute. Seemed fitting.

"Could I kiss you, Sarah?" He asked in a low voice near my ear.

"Since when do you ask nicely for the things that you want?”

He rocked back on his heels a little. "It's something about this place. Your friend started talking to her husband about tiles. We were served some sort of small vegetable dish. This doesn't seem like a fertility rite at all."

"What did you expect, an orgy?"

"I do not believe that the other males present here would be ... up for something like that," he said, a smile playing around his lips. "I've been watching them. I don't understand them. They all seem afraid of something. I wonder less now, at none of them managing to capture my Sarah's heart," he said, tracing one finger down my sternum and making me actually gulp. He closed the small distance between us, filling my vision like he was the only thing in the room.

It was too much. I closed my eyes.

His lips were gentle.

For about a second.

I think he was waiting to ascertain my response. And since my response was to melt into him, nerves on fire, hands reaching under his jacket to try to be closer to him, he apparently felt free to kiss me like I was his air, his food and drink, his salvation.

I hadn’t actually meant to let this happen again. But I think that the second he appeared in my mirror, I had known that this is where we were going. And I wanted him. It was embarrassing and awful how much I wanted him.

I came up for air but he just moved his lips down, finding my jawline, the side of my neck. "Wait," I managed to get out. He groaned and went still, then pulled back to look into my face.   
  
"Oh, Sarah," he said in a sulky sort of way, smoothing my hair away from my forehead. "You are going to tell me we need to go back into that polite, sterile room. And I so want to continue this conversation," he said. He bumped his forehead against mine with a rueful little smile and let me go.   
  
"Well, it's just not done, slinking off and making love in the middle of a wedding," I said, turning back to the mirror to see what our little make-out session had done to my lipstick. Nothing, it turned out. I suspected magic had been involved.   
  
"I think you'll find it is," he said, waving his hand around. "What else are these inviting pieces of furniture for?"  
  
"Well, it would be terribly rude. Especially in the middle of dinner."

He put his hand on the small of my back and led me back to my seat. I found I didn’t care any more if anyone thought we were shagging. In fact, I had a lovely time, with everything going so beautifully. Until after the speeches, when Stephen Sanderson turned up and plonked himself into Beth’s seat.

We’d had the dinner (I hadn’t actually managed to witness Jareth eat anything, but his plate had emptied) and a lot of improved wine, and the bridal waltz hadn’t been too unbearable to watch. Half the table had gotten up to dance, though so far Jeff had prevented us from following them by insisting on giving Jareth a monologue about his research into rare bromeliads. I had just put my hand on his leg under the table to give him a hint that I wanted his attention when I heard Stephen behind me.

“Sarah, I thought that was you,” he said. I felt Jareth’s thigh stiffen under my fingers as I withdrew them.

“Hi, Stephen,” I said cautiously. I hadn’t seen Stephen in about ten years, and I couldn’t truthfully say I’d missed him. I think Beth had told me at some point that he’d married some tiny thing who served on him hand and foot and made Beth a bit uncomfortable.

“I like your hair. But look at that weird necklace, you haven’t changed,” he said, putting his beer glass down on the table. “Lauren told me the other day that you were bringing Jane tonight, apparently you’ve both been still living it up in the singles life all this time?”

“Unfortunately, Jane couldn’t make it. Where’s your wife, I don’t think I’ve ever met her -”

“We’ve separated. So you’re here alone, too, then?”

“Um, no, I brought my friend Jareth,” I said, turning my head a little to gesture at him, expecting him to still be deep in conversation about transplanting pups. Instead I saw Mary and Jeff heading off to the dance floor and Jareth gazing at me intently. He gave Stephen a hostile smile and didn’t put out his hand. Stephen looked unnerved and blustered a little before asking me if I’d ever finished “that little Ph.D” I’d been doing.

“Yes, Stephen, I’m a professor now -”

Again, he didn’t let me finish, just interrupted me to start talking about his own job, which had something to do with -- honestly, I wasn’t listening. Presumably being a patronizing bore. I was madly poking Jareth in the leg at this point. He took the hint and stood up.

“You won’t mind, will you?” He said to Stephen with an impish smile as he took my hand. “But I think I’ve kept her waiting long enough.”

And without a backwards glance, I was being directed to the dance floor.

“Ugh, thank you,” I said. Jareth didn’t say anything for a moment or two and then said, “Apparently that young man fancies himself my rival.”

I head-butted Jareth’s shoulder for a second in embarrassment and then straightened up. “Yes. I was afraid that was what he had in mind.”

“He’s asking all about you. And me. Oh -- he’s just asked what I “do”. No one can tell him.”

I glanced over to see Stephen talking to the last couple left at our table, Ruth and Allan. They were all looking right at us. I probably would have blushed except I had a more pressing issue.

“What, can you hear them? From here?”

Jareth dipped me. “I can do a lot of things, Sarah.” He said in a low voice next to my ear before bringing me back up. “Certainly things that your friend Stephen has never dreamed of.”

“Well, obviously. And I certainly don’t want to know about anything Stephen dreams of.”

“Really? Are you so certain of that?” He said, looking at me steadily.

I just looked at him and couldn’t help it. I giggled. “You can’t possibly be jealous? Of that jerk? I haven’t even seen him or thought about him for -- I don’t even know how long. At least a decade.”

“Mmm,” he said, spinning us around. “Was it not two decades since you had seen me before our most recent meeting? And just minutes before we -”

“That was completely different and you know it,” I said, starting to get a bit cross. “If you are going to sulk like a 16-year-old because some idiot I couldn’t be less interested in bothered to say two words to me, then I’m not going to waste my breath reassuring you.”

He was silent for a moment. Then he said, in a low, dangerous sort of voice, “I am jealous. I am a jealous being, Sarah. I do not want anyone but me to ever touch you again. The thought of any of these puny little men daring to even think of bedding you -”

“ _Jareth_. Will you stop being _absurd_. There is absolutely no way that any man here but you is going to make it into my bed tonight.”

He went stock-still. Then he looked at me slyly. “So that is your plan for this night, is it? I am to be invited back into your bed?”

I groaned inwardly. Talk about Freudian slips. I lifted my chin.

“I did not say that. And your stock just plummeted here with your little possessive teenage boyfriend act. You’d better be on your best behaviour for the rest of the night if you think you’re getting so much as a good night kiss out of me.”

I don’t think he heard a word I said. He just held me a little closer in a satisfied sort of way and swung me around.

I don’t actually know how long we danced for. Until Lauren and her new husband left, anyway, with lots of fuss. Since, after that had happened, it was socially acceptable to leave, I decided it was time for one last trip to the nice bathroom before we could run off, pleased at having survived.

It was my night to be followed to the bathroom, however, only this time I came out to find Stephen also exiting into the lounge.

“Oh, Sarah, good, glad to get you alone for a second. Look, I don’t know how to say this but -- do you know what you’re getting in for, with that guy your brought? What did you say his name was, Gareth?”

“Jareth. And what are you talking about?”

“I mean -- Sarah, he looks at you like you’re something to eat.”

I just stared at him.

“He doesn’t seem like a good guy,” he elaborated. “You and I go way back, I don’t like seeing you with someone like that. You should listen to me, you know guys pick up on stuff women don’t and you were always so naive -”

“Yes, and that isn’t patronizing or offensive at all, thank you. You must be one of the good guys. But you are right -- Jareth is a bit of a shit. And a pain in the ass. But I really think our relationship is my business. Good _night_ , Stephen.”

I watched Jareth from across the room as I walked back to the table. He was sitting elegantly with one leg crossed over the other, playing idly with a flower I assume he’d pulled from the floral arrangement.

He had come to this stupid thing with me and been courteous to everyone. True, he hadn’t exactly behaved himself, even after I’d asked him not to spend the night trying to seduce me. And acquaintances I hadn’t seen in years were trying to warn me off him.

He looked up when I was a few metres away and tilted his head at me, holding the flower out to me in a magnificent, graceful hand.

He was still the most beautiful man I had ever seen.

“Take me home, goblin king,” I said into his ear. “And make love to me.”

I was about to open my mouth again to clarify that I meant _my_ home, and that he had better not magic me off to the goblin castle, but next thing I knew, we were in my flat.

“You know that it’s customary to say goodbye to one’s fellow guests before one leaves a function,” I said to him sternly.

“Oh, dear,” he said, in a way that I can only describe as blatantly facetious. And then he kissed me.

After that, well.

It was different to our last night together. That had been teasing. And prolonged. He had seemed slightly triumphant but still, it was as though he was determined to show his prowess. This time didn’t go on for the endless, delirious hours that our previous session had, but honestly, I think this time was better. He was more … humble. And more relaxed. There was more warmth and less wariness this time, I think, from both of us.

I think this time was probably more dangerous.

I missed him more in the morning when he was gone.


	3. What the hell am I doing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Once again, Jareth drops by unexpectedly. Sarah is less pleased to see him this time.
> 
> No sex, sorry, but hopefully still emotionally satisfying.
> 
> Word count: 2691

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a slightly different version of the story I originally posted over on the Labyfic community but a friend reader said I'd made Jareth far too open and vulnerable in that version and he needed to be more closed off, more emotionally unavailable, more controlled. 
> 
> I decided that she was right, so here is the haughty!Jareth version :) If you want the original, it's here: http://labyfic.livejournal.com/134721.html

_Come away, O human child_

_To the waters and the wild_

_With a fairy, hand in hand_

_For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand_

 

I’m fine.

I’m fine I’m fine I’m fine I’m fine I’m fine I’m fine

_Shhhhh._

My name is Sarah and yes, I conquered the labyrinth and defeated the goblin king and got my brother back. I was brave and valiant and then life got me to the point where the goblin king was able to seduce me.

Then I let it happen again.

What the hell am I doing.

I’ve decided I don’t want it to happen a third time.

I’ve put a blanket over my mirror.

God, what is that _noise_.

It’s Spring break. I got back from a symposium two days ago. I had a wonderful time. My paper was well received, the dinners were good, the conversation was stimulating. 

I got flowers, at my hotel, on the last night there. Strange wild flowers with herbs in the mix. They were waiting at the desk for me. No note.

I binned them on the way to my room.

When I got home, a ring of bluebells had started growing in the courtyard outside my apartment block.

I covered the bedroom mirror as soon as I got inside.

I had dinner with Toby tonight. He’s on holiday, Spring break and all, and he came to stay for a few days. We’d been having such a good time, watching movies and just hanging out. Then two friends texted me within hours to announce that they were pregnant.

Two.

You can’t really explain to a 20-year-old baby brother that you’re super pleased for your friends but you also feel like someone punched you in the stomach because your late 30s are looming and you have no man and no chance of a baby on the horizon.

That you could have a man but he isn’t a man. That there are no Sunday picnics in that future. No fat human babies toddling around in the sunshine.

I told Toby I had a migraine and made a beeline for my room.

I’ll just have a little cry, I thought, and go to bed.

But I’m gasping huge wracking sobs into my pillow, praying that Toby won’t hear, feeling like the future I wanted is lost and not thinking about that man and not thinking that all the not-thinking is probably the reason why I am completely over-reacting.

And that _damned noise outside_. It starts to annoy me more as I calm down. Wiping my face, I get up angrily to work out what the hell it is and rip the curtains open.

It’s a white owl.

_Not him not him it’s not him it’s not him_

I open the window and flap my arm at it. “Get out of here!” I say to it as loudly as I dare, not wanting Toby to hear. 

But it is him. And he flies in the damned window as though I’d invited him.

He’s barely transformed back to his human shape before I shove him in the chest, back towards to window. “You get out of here!” I hiss. “I don’t want to see you! I don’t ever want to see you again!”

He grabs my wrists to stop me shoving him again and opens his mouth to speak, his eyes like flint, but I hiss, “Toby’s in the spare room, don’t you _dare_ let him hear you.” 

Some strange emotion was visible in his eyes for a moment -- I swear it was like guilt and curiosity and envy and just a glimmer of delight, all at once -- but it was gone before I could even be sure I’d seen it. He takes a deep breath and nods towards Toby’s room.

“Your brother is fast asleep,” he says. “He will not wake until the morning, no matter how much noise we make.”

I yank at my hands, enraged. “How dare you treat him like a plaything, how dare you do magic on him -”

“You are angry at me for granting your brother a good night’s sleep?” He asks, raising his eyebrows, his voice level but his eyes flashing.

I sink a little as I absorb his perspective. I still have tears all over my face. I wonder if I’m all blotchy.

I don’t care.

“You covered the mirror,” he says, nodding towards it. He still hasn’t let me go.

“Trying to avoid unwanted guests,” I say. “Let me go.”

He looks at me like he is searching for my soul in my eyes. After a moment or two, he lets me go. “What has happened to you?”

“Nothing,” I say bitterly, rubbing my wrists. “I’m still here. I’m still here with no babies and no man to give them to me -” I stop, wondering what possessed me to tell him what has upset me.

He looks at me for another moment before saying, “Sarah, has it occurred to you that the reason you have never chosen a human man was because you knew who you wanted, all this time?”

“What, you? Only you would think that way, you arrogant -- you conceited -- no, you could be right. And in that case, you -- you’ve ruined my life. You came into it at such an impressionable time and you _ruined_ my life, you _cruel_ -”

“ _Me_ cruel? You have invited me into your bed, _twice,_ when you knew that I was in love with you, that I’ve been in love with you for 20 years, and yet you still feel _nothing_. How can you be so cold, so heartless -”

“It doesn’t matter that I love you, it changes nothing about our situation -”

_Oh god, what have I said._

I don’t think I realized it was true until the words come out of my mouth.

Jareth has gone very still. We stare at each other for what feels like a century. I’m the one that breaks the contact, wrapping my arms around myself as I turn my head.

He takes a step towards me and puts a finger under my chin, turning my face back towards him.

“Again, Sarah. Say it again,” he says.

“No.” I say, moving out of his reach. “You are a monster that steals children from their families.”

He crosses his arms, somehow making the gesture look regal and impatient. “The fey have always taken children. But only ones that are offered. I was offered,” he adds, his words clipped, his eyes boring into mine. “I was left at a sacred place as an oblation, in a time of famine. It is likely that my mother and her clan did not have the food to spare for me.”

I just stare at him. I can’t think of anything to say.

“I was taken in and made a prince. And then a king. I had a much better life than I would have.”

He inspects the fingernails on his right hand dispassionately, before saying, “the goblins take children because they have no queen to provide them for the kingdom.” He flicks his eyes up at me and then directs them to his own hand again. “I did not bother explaining this to you yet because I was convinced that you would take it as blackmail. To be my wife.”

“Wife,” I repeat, barely able to get the word out. It seems so strange a word to say in this context. “I can’t be your wife. You can’t give me what I want.”

“I can give you anything. Just name -”

“A child, children, _human children -”_

He looks at me in complete confusion for a moment. “Do I strike you as a eunuch?” He finally demands.

“ _Human_ children, _human children_ -” I am yelling it at him by now.

“Sarah, you are human. You and I make love as humans. What else would our children be?”

I sink down on my bed. I’m suddenly dizzy.

“We could have children.” I practically gasp the words out. I feel like I’m hyperventilating. My vision actually breaks out in spots.

“Yes, Sarah. In fact, I don’t think you understand quite how much I would like to plant a child in your belly.”

“Well, you never talk to me,” I yell at him, my vision clearing as I get angry again. “This is the longest proper conversation we’ve ever had, I don’t even know how to contact you voluntarily -”

He closes his eyes and lets out a low humourless laugh, mirroring me and sinking down onto my dressing chair, his hand over his face. “The herbs I sent you. You _burn_ the _herbs_.” He says through his fingers, and then he’s yelling back at me, his arm making a sweeping motion over the wall next to us, which is covered with books. “How can you surround yourself with our lore and not know how to _contact_ _us_?”

“There’s no fricking instruction manual, you know, for contacting the most secretive damned race on the planet -”

But he’s gotten up and grabbed me by the shoulders and kissed me by that point. I don’t bother resisting. I’m completely numb. When he lets me go, he holds me close to him and says in my ear, “We can have children, Sarah. Human children.”

But I spot another problem, and look up into his face. “Human children that can live human lives? That can grow up, above ground? With a mother and a father?”

He is silent for a moment, smoothing my hair away from my face. “We could come to an agreement, you and I,” he says carefully. “I could live above ground with you, and when our children are grown -- our grandchildren, too, if you like -- you could take your place as goblin queen.”

“But -- I’ll be _old_ \-- I don’t want to spend eternity as an octogenarian --”

He chuckles. “Easily fixed,” he says, placing a kiss on my nose. He is silent for a second, gazing at me, before he adds quietly, “Our children must be given the choice to come with us.”

“Our children,” I repeat in wonder. I look up at him again. “I barely know you!”

He opens his mouth as though he’s going to retort and then closes it again. He kisses me on the forehead. “You know me, Sarah. You love me,” he whispers the last in my ear triumphantly. “But if we need to spend more time together, before you decide, then we can do that.”

We just sit there, for several minutes. I feel stunned. I don’t think I could take any more in.

“I need some time to think about what you’ve said,” I say.

He nods.

“And you’re going to have to explain all of this properly to me. All the details.”

He nods again.

“I will go,” he says, and gets up, and then looks uncertain for a second before it slips away so quickly, I cannot be sure I saw it. “When can I return? I cannot come without invitation.”

I rub a hand over my forehead, not really noticing I'm doing it. “I -- um. In the morning. Come back in the morning. I’m taking Toby out for breakfast.” 

When I looked up, he was gone.

* * *

You’d think that after an evening like that, I wouldn’t have been able to sleep. But you’d be wrong. I slept like the dead as soon as my head hit the pillow and I woke up, not full of apprehension for the deal with the devil that I was considering, but positively chipper.

We could have children.

Human children.

My brother was already up, making coffee, when I bounced into the kitchen. I gave him a big kiss on the cheek, which he smiled at, and told him my friend Jareth was joining us for breakfast. Just as the doorbell went.

It wouldn’t be the last time I wondered if Jareth had my apartment bugged, the better to time his appearances.

When I opened the door, there he was, faking normal, wearing some sort of expensive-looking dark jeans -- _jeans_ \-- and a peacoat with the collar up, framing his throat.

That _throat_.

His hair looked more “natural” than I’d seen it before (I use sarcastic quotation marks because I’m sure it was absolutely calculated, just like everything else about his appearance), tousled and with definite curls showing through.

I wanted to touch his hair. I wanted to sink both my hands into it. While straddling him. Just before I kissed him. Or possibly in the middle. Of sex.

It just wasn’t fair. There was no way I wasn’t having this man’s babies.

We walked to the café, Jareth and Toby making chit chat. Toby wanted to know where Jareth came from, with that accent. He started telling Toby about London, so without ever saying that was where he was from, gave that impression.

If I went through with this, I was going to have to learn to be a liar without actually lying, as well. I was going to have to learn a lot of things.

We sat in my favourite table, at the café’s window. We ordered pancakes (or, more specifically, Toby and I ordered pancakes and Jareth said he’d have what I was having). And then, just like a normal boyfriend, except that I can’t possibly use that word since Jareth is nobody’s boyfriend, he put his hand on my knee under the table. Which I wouldn’t have minded except that Toby apparently saw, since that’s when he gave me a cheeky smile and asked, “So, Jareth, are you dating my sister?” quite loudly and pointedly.

I facepalmed. Bloody little brothers.

“Well, I’m trying,” Jareth said, smiling his widest, most charming smile. “But she hasn’t been making it easy.”

I glared at him over my fingers as he glanced over at me.

“Why?” Toby asked. “What’s wrong with you?”

Little brothers are wonderful.

“Are you broke or something?” He went on. “Do you have a job?”

“I do,” he says, and then adds in a confiding tone, leaning forward, “and I’m actually very, very rich.”

“Do you hate kids? She wants kids, you know.”

“I know. And I’m great with kids,” he said smoothly, looking down and playing with his cuff.

“Have you been in jail?”

Jareth actually laughs at this one. “No,” he says.

“Hmm,” says Toby, as the waitress appears with our food. He motions facetiously with his fingers to Jareth that he’s keeping an eye on him, winks at me, and then starts wolfing down his food.

As with our last encounter, I didn’t actually manage to spot Jareth eating, but his food disappeared either way. 

Just one of the things I wanted to ask him about. I decided I should make a list.

We went for a brief walk in the park afterwards, while Jareth asked Toby about his studies. He slipped his hand into mine at some point. It simultaneously felt absolutely natural and made my skin scream. I felt like my hair was standing on end.

Once we’d done a lap and before it could get awkward, since my brother and I had plans, Jareth made an excuse to leave us. Something about a meeting, I wasn’t really listening. He kissed me on the cheek and asked me to “call him” before he walked off. Just like a guy would, who’s trying to woo you, who’s come out to breakfast with you and your brother.

What the hell was I doing.

“Oh, sis,” Toby said, as soon as he figured we were out of earshot. “You’re in trouble. You’ve got it bad.”

I blushed. In fact, since I knew we were probably not out of earshot at all, I blushed extra red. “What do you mean?”

“You look at him like you’re a deer trapped in headlights. Except he’s not going to run you over, he’s going to throw you over his shoulder and take you off to his mansion somewhere.”

I shoved him with my shoulder.

But he was right.

I had it bad. And I was in trouble.

But it felt wonderful.


	4. The herbs didn't work

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Complete smut, I can only apologise. 
> 
> Word count: 882

 

My name is Sarah. Yes, I defeated the goblin king. But now I was thinking about having his children.

It’s … complicated.

We’d only just talked about it the other day. Then we had breakfast with my brother, who has gone back to his college dorm now. I haven’t seen Jareth for a few days. I wanted to get my head in the right space before I “called” him using the herbs he left me.

When I say “left”, I mean it literally. I came home the other day to a delivery of window boxes planted with them. Unfortunately, when I googled “burning herbs to contact fairies”, I got nothing. He still hadn’t actually told me exactly what to do with them.

I decided to just take the bull by the horns. I picked a few sprigs of each and put them in a glass ashtray I’d had for years for reasons unknown (I don’t smoke) and tried to set them on fire.

They wouldn’t take.

Finally I just held a lighter to them until they burned up, saying Jareth’s name and visualizing him. It was the best I could think of.

I sat down with a book to wait, but after 20 minutes of nothing, I figured it hadn’t worked and decided to get ready for bed. I hopped into the shower, cursing him and his secrets.

Then I heard a little sigh. I wiped the water out of my eyes frantically to the sounds of a male voice sounding its malest, saying “Oh, _Sarah_.”

He’d bloody turned up after all.

I have one of those fancy modern walk-in showers with no door, just frameless clear glass. I’d never wanted ugly old-fashioned frosted glass more. I instinctively turned against the tiled corner in an attempt to protect my modesty, putting my head against the wall in embarrassment. He chuckled and I looked over my shoulder to see him pulling his shirt off.

“Look at the blushing maiden!” He said affectionately, moving on to his pants. Somehow his boots had just disappeared. I suspected sorcery. “You’d think I hadn’t seen every inch of you. Twice.”

“That was completely different,” I said. “That was in the mostly dark, in the throes of lust. When we were both naked. We didn’t stand around and have nude time afterwards.”

He came up behind me, putting his hands on my hips and a kiss on my shoulder. “There,” he said. “Both naked,” he added, which I considered redundant given what was pressing against me. “I can help you with the lust part if you’re struggling,” he whispered, sliding his hands along my skin.

“You know it’s not generally considered polite to invade someone’s bathroom, yeah?” I said, pretending to ignore his wandering fingers. They weren’t being too X-rated just yet.

“Well, apparently you needed me. In the shower. Do you need your back scrubbed?” He asked, kissing along my shoulder blades.

I groaned. “No. I needed you to tell me how the damned herbs work. I tried to use them; you didn’t come.”

“We can work on that,” he said. His fingers had hit X-rated.

“I’m never thinking of you in the shower again,” I managed to say. Not very clearly.

“Well, that wouldn’t be a very gratifying reflection on my skill. I was hoping that after tonight, you’d _always_ think of me in the shower,” He said, then murmured an instruction in my ear, to take a step backwards. I obeyed without thinking, distracted by his fingers, and with that, he slid into me.

I don’t think he’d been in my presence for more than about 60 seconds, and he was already inside me. That had to be a record of some kind.

He’d bent me over slightly by leaning over me himself, nuzzling into my neck. I couldn’t fault the angle he’d created, it was extremely nice. But then he straightened up and that had me gasping and crying out, clawing at the wet wall, wishing there was something to hold on to, to help relieve the intensity. I twisted my hips and he slipped out. “Not that way,” I said, turning around finally and wrapping myself around him. “I need to touch you.”

He pushed me up against the wall, lifting me off my feet. I reflected later that it was truly impressive, the way he had managed to both encourage me to wrap my legs around him in just the right way, while kissing me extremely thoroughly. No human man I’d ever been with could concentrate on kissing while we were also trying to organise our bodies for optimal sexing. Perhaps goblins were good at multitasking. But I was so completely distracted by his mouth that his point of re-entry surprised me and I reared my head back with a moan, my back arching. He took the opportunity to sink his mouth onto one of my breasts and I moaned louder.

It was over in a manner of minutes, which was a good thing, because I think I would have exploded otherwise. We finished up at the same time, rocking and clinging to each other, our hair in our eyes, water beaded on our faces.

He buried his head in my neck for a moment, and then chuckled.

“Hello, Sarah,” he said.  
 


	5. I can do this

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sarah learns a lot more about the world she's being persuaded to enter. 
> 
> Word count: 7415

My name is Sarah. The goblin king had just turned up in my bathroom. We may have had sex in the shower. But that wasn’t the point.

“If we’re going to have a proper _relationship_ ,” I said, stumbling over the word. It didn’t seem like one should have relationships with furtive, calculating, jealous goblins. Who stalked you and spied on you and didn’t respect your privacy. No matter how handsome they were, or how sexy their voice was. Or how nice they’d been lately.

Or how completely lost you got in their eyes. Or how their lips felt on your skin. Or how good they were with their hands. Those beautiful hands.

What was I saying.

“…then we need to have boundaries. No appearing in my bathroom. Showering isn’t the only thing I do in there, you know!”

“Sarah, you needed something from me. I am bound to come.”

“Well, can you come to my _front door_ , and _knock_?”

“There is no mirror there.”

“Well, we can install one.”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “And if you are, as you say, doing something in the bathroom? Am I just supposed to wait in the hallway?”

“Fine. You can have a _key,_ ” I said.

Something like triumph flashed across his face for a split second and I instantly regretted my offer -- I hardly knew why -- but then it was gone and he was tilting his head in a movement of haughty agreement.

I didn’t know how he managed to look so… regal, lounging against the bathroom wall in just his trousers (that was all he’d put on after we got out of the shower. I simultenously found it distracting but also sort of liked it. It not only gave me plenty to look at and then want to touch, but it indicated that he didn’t feel the need to bother putting too many of his clothes back on. It was honest, if arrogant and potentially manipulative).

I wondered how his trousers stayed up. They didn’t have any visible fastenings. They just sort of folded over at the top. Where his stomach started. All hairless and flat; well, mostly flat. There was the suggestion of muscle.

I wanted to touch it. But I was still only wearing a towel. Seemed like a dangerous idea.

I got my brain back on topic again.

“Also, this whole thing where you can’t come to me unless I call or I’ve given you a prior invitation puts all the onus on me to drive what we’re doing. It isn’t exactly spontaneous.”

“You wish me to come to you spontaneously?” He said, smiling a small, controlled smile. I had come not to trust that smile.

“I just think there must be a better way, so whatever it is that we’re doing can evolve more organically.”

I went to start blotting my hair dry and found that it was, somehow, dry all of a sudden. I suspected magic.

“I could have used the hairdryer,” I said, more crossly than I felt.

“But then I wouldn’t have your full attention. Now we can retire to your bedchamber. I have something for you and this seems a fitting time.”

“Something” turned out to be boxes all over the bed. All with slinky peignoir sets in them, in all different colours; dark champagne, emerald green, burgundy, dark purple. That last one was a little bit skimpy, actually, but the fabric was as soft as water. I looked closer at the champagne one; it was sort of 1930s, floor length with big lace diamond panels. The matching robe’s sleeves ended in feathers, loads of them, like very short fluffy feather boas.

I kind of loved it.

“Yours?” I asked, waving the feathers at him.

He narrowed his eyes at me but also scrunched his mouth in the way that I had learnt meant that he was trying not to smile.

“You know that sexy lingerie is really more of a gift for _you_ , right?” I said.

“I think there would be far less fabric if it was a gift for me, precious one. Besides, you’ve just said that you want this to be more “normal”. This is what human men do when they court women. They give them gifts to show that they’re thinking of them.”

“And you think of me in lacey nightgowns?”

“It’s bed time!” He said impatiently. “Here, then,” he added, sliding another of the boxes towards me. I hadn’t noticed this one. Inside was another nightdress, but no lace, no spaghetti straps, just modest and shapeless, in a jersey knit of the softest wool I’d ever felt. I couldn’t begin to guess what it was; it didn’t seem like angora or cashmere.

I touched it against my face as I shook it out, I couldn’t help it. It was in a natural taupe-y sort of colour, with a matching “robe” that was really just a long sort of cardigan.

It was perfect.

But after rubbing it against my face one more time, I still put it down and reached for the feathery set. I had company, after all.

I tossed my towel onto the bed, leading Jareth to make a noise low in his throat and reach for me, but I’d slipped the nightgown on before he could get there. It slid down my body like water.

He wrapped his arms around me, burying his face in my neck. “Temptress,” he half whispered, half growled in my ear before kissing me soundly. He let me go after that, holding my hands up so he could see the nightgown on me. He smiled a small, pleased, possessive sort of smile, whether simply at ogling me, or at the sight of me wearing something that he had given me, or because he just liked the nightgown, I couldn’t tell.

I managed to extract my hands so that I could pull the robe on as well. I felt like I should have been in a musical from Hollywood’s golden age. In a good way. Particularly since I wasn’t finished talking about boundaries and rules and sassy women in old musicals were always doing that.

“We need to spend more time together, not in my bedroom. If we’re doing this, we have to -- to -- go out to dinner and watch bad movies and get drunk together and… the usual things humans do to get to know each other better.”

He contemplated me for a moment. “You want me to woo you like normal men? Take you to the places they would take you?”

“That’s what I’m saying! Yes!”

He looked at me for another moment. “No, you don’t,” he said finally.

I gaped at him. I couldn’t even ask him what he meant, I was suddenly so full of wild thoughts (he was going to take back everything he’d said about letting me live aboveground) and a sudden chilling fear (he was going to leave me, it was all over) but then he elaborated, stalking around me.

“You’ve watched bad movies with other men. Other men have taken you to the bars and restaurants near your home and tried to bond with you over wine and meat.” He paused briefly in front of me and whispered in my ear, “You didn’t want them.”

He kissed my mouth, lightly, and then murmured into my lips, “You wanted me.”

I actually shivered. I wondered when his voice would stop affecting me so much. But now it was relentless as he went on, continuing to pace around me.

“I’ll take you to places you’ve never seen, never heard of. We can do things you wouldn’t have even thought to dream of. That is what you wanted, Sarah.”

I opened my eyes to find he’d stopped an inch in front of me. I leant forwards and kissed him.

“Yes,” I breathed against his mouth, twining my arms around his neck. “Yes.”

I saw his eyes for a second before he kissed me; they were knowing and exultant. He pushed me back onto the bed, his arm swiping the boxes out of the way, sending them flying to the floor.

“Hey, I like those,” I said breathlessly as silk tumbled onto my carpet.

“Mmmm, as do I,” he murmured into my neck. “Look at the way this one just slips right off you,” he added, as he demonstrated.

* * *

He was as good as his word. Not about the nightgown, although plenty of those slipped right off me, but about the things we’d do together. Over the next few months he took me to parts of the world no one else could have shown me. Wild forests teaming with fantastical plants and birds, where we ate strange fruit and saw the most beautiful butterflies I’ve ever seen; caverns that looked like they were made of precious stones, with no actual openings large enough for anyone to get through. An island in the Pacific that Jareth assured me hadn’t seen humans in hundreds of years. He peeled my clothing off by a mountain pool fed by a hot spring, and we swam naked in the warm water. We walked along the beach and made love on the soft white sand at the shore.

You’ll be pleased to know that none of said sand made it into anywhere (as with so many little details lately, I suspected magic was involved).

We visited an African tribe that worshipped owls, who bowed down at the sight of him before the chief donned a feathered cloak and kissed Jareth’s feet. They gave us a strange stew with flat bread and danced a wild bird dance that the goblin king took up with gusto.

On days or nights that I begged off adventures, demanding pizza or Vietnamese or just _something_ that would be eaten on my couch, he would whisk me briefly off to a pizzeria in Naples or a street cart in Ho Chi Minh or a hole in the wall in Columbia. That one was manned by a woman who looked old enough to be my grandmother but who still winked at Jareth saucily. One chilly, premenstrual afternoon when I said that I just wanted to eat cake and have hot chocolate, he took me to the birthplace of Sacher Torte in Vienna.

I told him I preferred my friend Jane’s version. She makes it every year for my birthday.

He still hasn’t met her. Because I can’t bear to lie to her face.

So far he has taken me to Faery just once, to an elvish market. We both wore huge grey cloaks with the hoods up, which I protested was sure to make us more conspicuous, not less, but he said that it was the etiquette when a noble went among common folk and did not wish a fuss to be made.

I ate fruit that I was assured was grown under no sun I’d ever seen. It was so delicious I almost felt afraid. But it was not addictive _or_ hallucinogenic; Jareth had promised me that I would be safe. “You are the prospect for my queen,” he murmured in my ear. “I will not let anyone bewitch you or make away with you.”

Not that nobody tried. There was a fruit seller who offered me something and got himself knocked headfirst into his own cart for his trouble by an angry Jareth. Later, a young man (who was probably neither) leered at me and whistled a tune that sounded so familiar and lovely, I didn’t even notice him reach out and just manage to touch my cheek before he was whisked away and rammed into a wall. In that particular case, Jareth’s mouth had suddenly seemed to have more teeth than it usually did.

Which reminded me of something I was going to have to ask him.

Jareth took me to see a fairy dancing display to calm us both down after that. It was lovely; they were dancing in a wild circle, to a piper. There were bells, too, though I couldn’t see where they came from. Then, just before we left, he suggested I try the elvish wine. It was served in tiny thimblefuls and I was so dizzy before I was even halfway through, I fell into Jareth’s arms, his smile the last thing I saw before we transported back to my place.

We danced all around my flat for, oh, I don’t know how long, and the goblin king sang me a silly song that I assume he made up on the spot, for my amusement. Then I got very sleepy.

He covered my face in kisses as he put me to bed, but when I tried to pull him down with me, he stilled my busy hands.

“I will not have you berate me tomorrow for taking advantage of you in a weakened state.”

“I’m waaaay too sleepy for sex. I just want to touch you,” I said plaintively. “I always want to touch you,” I added in a murmur, closing my eyes. Or at least I think I did. Either way, I felt his side of the bed dip as he lay on it, his arm creeping over me.

I wondered when I had started thinking of it as his side of the bed.

"Jareth?" I asked quietly.

"Precious one?"

I opened my eyes and turned my head a little into look in his face, so open now but sure to shut down as soon as I'd asked my question. "What do you really look like?"

Snap. Like closing a book.

He was silent for a moment, and then he said, "This is what I really look like."

"Yes, but ... what else do you look like?"

Again, he said nothing for some moments, leading me to babble that I’d seen the way that his face had changed in the market and that I needed to know what he’d meant, it seemed an age ago now, when he had said that “we make love as humans”.

Finally he kissed my forehead and gave a tiny shake of his head. "Not here," he said. "Not now." 

I opened my mouth but he put a finger over it before I could speak. "I will be too strange here, in your domestic little space. Especially with you under the weather.” He sighed. “I will have to show you at some point if you are to be my wife. But I will take you somewhere ancient and wild. And then you will see."

* * *

As it turned out, I wasn’t in suspense for very long before seeing Jareth in his goblin form. Because we ran into a spot of bother when he attempted to take me to faery for the second time.

But before that happened, faery actually started trying to find me. Jareth said later that the trip to the market must have done it. It had been seen as a sign that the conquerer of the labyrinth was returning to take her place next to its king.

At first it was little things. Overnight the apartment block I lived in started seeming much cleaner. Then I realised one morning that my car had been washed and polished, but certainly not by me.

Then the odd nut started being left outside my front door. A perfect little walnut in a shell; an almond; a hazelnut. Each time, confused as to why they were there and at a loss as to what to do with them, since it seemed ridiculous to knock on a neighbour’s door to check to see if they’d dropped one single nut, I blithely brought them inside and put them on my kitchen bench.

“What are these?” Jareth asked sharply one night, noticing my growing collection. I had six or seven by then.

“Um. They’re nuts?”

Jareth’s nostrils flared, ever so slightly. “Obviously, they are nuts. Nuts from the faery market, if I am not mistaken. How did they get here?”

I went over to look at them. “They were left at my door,” I said in wonder. “I found them. I wasn’t sure why they were there but I didn’t want to leave them in the hall.” I looked up at him. “Did I do the wrong thing?”

But he was already striding across the room to inspect the doorway. The windows were next. Which was when we spotted a tiny woman in a scrap of a yellow dress that matched her wings, on the ledge of my bedroom window.

I started back, exclaiming in surprise. Though diminutive, she was bigger than the fairies that I had seen outside the labyrinth, or dancing to the pipes at the faery market, by maybe three times. Jareth opened the window a crack.

“Good evening, lady sprite.” He said. She smiled and made a perfunctory curtsy to him but then craned her neck dramatically, as if asking him to move aside so that she could see something else. He moved sideways so that I came into view and her face lit up. She curtsied again and then bowed low, producing a leaf with an offering of a tiny spray of small berries on it. She stayed bowed, apparently waiting for her gift to be accepted.

Jareth smiled an indulgent smile, and opened the window a little wider so as to pick up the tiny offering, but she moved to protect it, her eyes huge in her face as she looked at me pleadingly.

He stepped back, his smile deepening.

“It would appear that I am not even permitted to accept the offering for you, my lady.”

I immediately went to move forward, to ease her distress, but then stopped after just one step.

“What is the etiquette for something like this?” I asked him softly, not taking my eyes off the small woman. “Am I creating an expectation or an obligation? I’m not the queen yet.”

His smile widened. “But you are already starting to think the right way. Pick up your present, nod your head in acknowledgement but do not speak. Then we had best close the window and cover it, before we have a stampede. I think I see more of them.”

I did as instructed. Jareth pulled the curtain closed in a haughty fashion that I think sent a clear message to anything outside. “Are these … safe?” I asked, sagging against the wall and looking down at the tiny red berries. They looked too beautiful to eat, like they were actually spun from glass.

“They are, as are those nuts you were given, but best show me any other items that appear. The little ones don’t always know what humans can and cannot tolerate. And others are … mischievous.”

I think I must have looked as torn and overwhelmed and worried as I felt, because he took me in his arms then.

“My kingdom wants you,” he said, softly and gently, into my hair. “As I want you.” He kissed me then, and kissed me and kissed me. I felt dizzy when he pulled away.

“She was so beautiful,” I said. I couldn’t keep the longing from my voice, disconcerted though I was. “But … so _other_. I’m not ready, I -”

“I will send out an order that no one is to seek you out in the human world again, if you like. But some of them are wild creatures. Like the sprites. They are free things. I am not sure they would even understand,” he said. “Speaking of which … I think I saw signs that your apartment block has a brownie, of all things. Does it seem … cleaner?”

“Yes!” I said. “Do we need to do something about it? Will it cause problems? He really did do a wonderful job waxing my car.”

Jareth smiled and shrugged one shoulder, gracefully. Sort of like a cat. If cats shrugged. “Leave it a thimbleful of honey, if you feel like it. It’s doubtless here for you, just like the bluebells and whoever is leaving those nuts at your door. But best not invite anything inside. Well, except me,” he said, kissing me again.

I thought of that incident many times over the next few months, as it became more and more clear to me that I would never have Jareth just to myself, not long-term. That any marriage we had would never just be about the two of us. Because he was a king.

Which was the main problem, really, the next time he attempted to take me to faery. It wasn’t even planned. It was a Friday evening. I was tired after a week of work and had told him firmly that I was in no mood for crazy adventures (you’ll laugh at that later). His compromise was to whisk me away for a quick gelato in Rome -- I don’t know how he overcame the time difference, and mentally added it to my list of things to talk to him about -- with promises of a family-run trattoria that would serve us a dinner I would dream about for years.

We were near the pantheon, and as we wandered around the curved building, we ended up in quite an academic discussion of depictions of the divine in the classical world. He just wanted to quickly show me a series of cave paintings and wood carvings in a “nearby” faery wood, before we went to dinner, to illustrate a point he was making.

But it was as though they were waiting for us.  

I felt him go absolutely still the second we arrived and I looked around, to see three people -- two men and a woman -- dressed in leather armour and cloaks.

And a circle marked out in what looked like salt.

“Jareth, king of the goblins,” the taller of the men said, inclining his head a little, but still managing to sound mocking. “I issue challenge.”

He said it as though he was commenting on the weather.

And then he morphed into the biggest goblin I’d ever seen.

Seriously, the guy was huge. He had to have been more than seven feet tall, and more than two feet wide. Maybe three. He had shoulders on him like I’d never seen, and a mouth full of the most vicious teeth, like a shark or a wolf or something out of a horror movie. His eyes were huge, black curved things and his ears curled out of his head like horns. His hands were tipped with claws like knives.

My time in the labyrinth had never prepared me for anything like this. I suddenly realized why Jareth had been so reluctant to show me his goblin form. I had been trying to imagine him four feet tall, wondering how it could be achieved; I should have pictured larger, not smaller.

I think I can be forgiven for gasping. I may have stumbled backwards. Jareth put a hand out as I moved, taking my arm, stepping slightly in front of me.

“Ethan,” he said, and I realized he was talking to our enormous friend. “Do you really need to do this?”

Ethan laughed. It sounded like breaking glass, like fingernails down a blackboard. I bit my lips together.

“You are not universally loved, _my king_ ,” he said, making the words as sardonic as he could. “Within or without the kingdom. There was so much excitement after the conquerer bested you and your labyrinth.

“You should have seen him,” he said, addressing me his time. “Half the castle destroyed by your defeat of him and what does he do? Mope around, pale as death, for months and months. We thought he really might finally fade. While my benefactors might have liked that, they were also satisfied with a king so weakened, so we did not move then.

“But you know what he did? He discovered that you regularly still saw the friends you had made in his maze. For some ridiculous reason, he took hope from this. He pulled himself together long enough to restore the city.

“I would have killed them all and found some allowable way to kill you as well. The conquerer of the labyrinth should not have been allowed to live. And there is no possible way,” he said, his eyes flicking back to Jareth, who had still not moved, “that you can be allowed to marry. The conquerer as queen, by Jareth’s side, producing the kingdom’s first children in millennia? _His_ children? That is too much change for some of your nobles. Others just don’t want to be stuck with you and your legacy forever. And you will most definitely become too strong for some of the rival kingdoms.

“So yes, _my lord_. I do need to challenge you. And I will kill you. We can decide what to do with the conquerer later. Possibly she can be _my_ bride,” he said, grinning in a horrible way that included far too many teeth. I don’t know how he didn’t cut his lips on them.

“That’s never happening,” I said through gritted teeth. “I will never agree to that.”

“I can make you agree!” he roared. “Who do you think you are, _conquerer_? We are a race apart, and I will make you see what I want you to see, _I will make you think what I want you to think_.”

“You’re forgetting, young one,” Jareth said, “I already tried forcing her hand by magic. It did not go well.”

“You were an old fool and we will be well rid of you. Now _fight_ , goblin king, before I declare you forfeit and coward and I take everything that was yours.”

And Jareth changed.

At first, I didn’t know what I was seeing. He shot up half a foot and widened, his shoulders bigger, his arms long and muscular. _It couldn’t be him_ , I thought, nearly falling over from how out of kilter my reality suddenly was. But then I realized that his huge mop of straw-coloured hair was reminiscent of his hair when we had first met and his eyes, narrowed to black slits, were similar in shape to the black markings he’d had around them then.

Even in this form, however, he was still beautiful and androgynous and graceful and regal. I couldn’t work out how, since he was also terrifying and predatory and nightmarish. I thought of Edmund Burke and the concept of the sublime, of awe and divinity. I thought of the old testament, of the fear humans showed in the presence of angels. I thought I may be losing my mind. Perhaps I had lost it as a teenager. Or perhaps this was all a dream.

No. It couldn’t be, I thought, as I pinched myself firmly on the arm. And the cold, controlled expression on his face? It was his, only his. He held himself in the same way as he always did as he walked towards the circle.

“I do not want this,” he said, flexing his hands and moving his neck, a bit like a prize fighter. His voice was both the same and not; gravelly and deeper, yet the same. “This is not my choice.”

“Bind and gag the conquerer,” Ethan growled at his friends, the second Jareth was over the line. “Make sure she cannot speak.”

The couple moved towards me but then, from nowhere, a whole flock of sprites and fairies came pouring out of the trees, making angry chittering noises and flapping their wings and baring their teeth at my would-be assailants. Seven or eight of the little creatures broke off from the block and started flying about their heads, pulling tiny swords from their belts and hissing.

The pair stepped back, looking like they’d swallowed something bitter. They clearly hadn’t anticipated anything like this. They looked to Ethan for direction. He simply roared with frustration.

Jareth laughed.

“Precious one,” he called out to me, “To thank the sprites and their pets for their help, why don’t you tell them a story, about my imminent victory over this insolent pup?”

The challenger roared again, but I wasn’t afraid of him anymore. Because the nobles’ desire to gag and silence me suddenly made sense.

The beliefs and words of humans. They mattered to the fae.

I took a deep breath and smiled at the sprites, who fluttered their wings with pleasure while I desperately searched for the words that would turn our situation into a narrative.

“Once upon a time, there was an ancient, noble king, attempting to woo his beloved,” I said quickly, my eyes flicking from Jareth and his challenger as they circled, to the two other goblins as they tried to keep one eye on the fight, and one on me and my swarm of protectors.

“This did not please everyone,” I went on, “for it would mean that the kingdom would finally have a queen, changing everything. An impertinent young nobleman, with the help of some of the kingdom’s enemies, attempted to raise support to overthrow the fine king’s rule.”

The challenger launched himself at Jareth, who merely moved out of the way. Like a total boss.

“The presumptuous young claimant was physically larger than the king in his goblin form, but, as any woman can tell you, size isn’t everything.”

I heard Jareth chuckle as he dodged out of the way again. The sprites made a tinkling noise like bells. This all seemed to infuriate the challenger further, who growled and roared and rushed at his king again. This time Jareth knocked him out of the way, down to the ground, but the bastard didn’t stay down long enough for Jareth to push his advantage, and rolled out of the way just as Jareth’s foot landed where his head would have been. He pounced up and they started circling each other again. I went on.

“The king was not only handsome, he was also shrewd, and quick, and lithe. These attributes not only helped him to rule a fae kingdom, and worked wonders with the womenfolk -- they also made him very skilled at fighting. And with his lady to impress, standing on the sidelines and urging him on with her words and her force of will, there was no way that he could not triumph over the attempted usurper. Particularly one so clumsy and inferior, wearing himself out as he was with pointless attacks.

“The traitor did not have the support of the littlest, wildest folk,” I nodded at this point at my flock of protectors, who tinkled and twittered with pride, “who had bravely come to the aid of the king’s beloved when his friends tried to attack her in such a dishonourable fashion, waiting until the king was inside the ring and could not leave it until the fight was finished.

“However, these disgraces to the name goblin were starting to think that supporting such a vain attempt at overthrowing their gracious, magnanimous king had been complete folly. They considered whether the best course of action might not be simply to flee, or to throw themselves on the king’s mercy after his triumph, knowing that they would risk being thrown into an oubliette or a bog. Or worse, given that they had attempted to lay hands on the king’s beloved and she was _very. Annoyed. About. The. Whole. Thing_.”

The sprites hissed at the two goblins standing at the sidelines, who were looking more and more worried.

Until Ethan’s claws swiped across Jareth’s side.

Jareth hissed and I cried out; then all of a sudden I wasn’t even sure what I was seeing any more, as they had started moving too quickly for me to keep track of what was happening. Ethan was trying to attack again and Jareth was blocking him, blocking him; finally he made a swiping motion and Ethan spun around from the force of a blow he received, blood spraying out from a huge wound to his abdomen.

He fell to his knees.

Jareth took a fistful of his opponent’s hair, ripping his head back and baring his neck.

And then Jareth paused, his eyes sliding over to me.

I turned my back and said, half to myself, "The future queen averted her eyes. She wasn't sure if or how the king was going to dispatch his enemy and she found that she didn't want to know. She wasn't a goblin yet, after all."

I heard a noise I didn’t want to think about too much and turned slightly, so that I could see the challenger’s friends. They had dropped to their knees, quietly, clearly going for the mercy option. Some part of me took heart that they had not run, that they were relying on Jareth’s leniency. It made it seem like the man I loved was a more forgiving king than the one who had likely just killed his opponent.

“It’s an oubliette for you two,” I heard Jareth say behind me, in that strange gravelly voice. “We’ll see how long it takes me to remember that you’re there.”

And just like that, they were gone.

I turned back to the goblin king, standing alone, now, in the ring. He made an impatient motion with his hand and the circle was gone. Then he looked up at me, his mouth full of vicious-looking teeth and his pointed ears coming out of his hair; his eyes black and curved and his arms all long, carved muscles; and all I could see was the slash to his side, and another to his arm that must have happened when I wasn’t able to follow the fight. It was seeping black-looking blood onto his shirt.

I needed to go to him desperately.

I made to step forwards but was blocked by a wall of sprites, all shaking their heads at me and waving their arms at me to stop, their eyes wide.

“Oh, but - but - I need -” I was incoherent in my arguments by that point. I may have whimpered.

“The little ones are quite right,” Jareth called out over their chittering, his voice still gravelly. “You are still far too breakable, my precious one, to come to me in my present form. Particularly when I have been fighting.”

He put a hand to his injured side and then it was like reality shifted again. I didn’t see the moment when it happened; but all of a sudden there was the face I knew, and the body, in a bloodstained shirt that was ripped to shreds in parts. He made another impatient gesture and suddenly the “normal” date clothes that I’d made him wear were replaced by a thoroughly goblinish, all-black ensemble with a huge black poet shirt that would have been open all the way down the front, if it hadn’t been tucked into some sort of extra-wide belt, or extra-short corset. There was definite eyeliner action going on and a lot of boot.

The gloves were back, too. He hadn’t worn them in my presence since our “reunion”, as it were. They frightened me a little. But they don’t stop me from flying into his arms the second that the sprites saw fit to let me pass.

They disappeared into the night as I threw myself at him, trying to avoid his wounds. I clung to him for a heartbeat or two and then I kissed him, clinging to his neck, pressing my lips against him like he was air and I’d been drowning.

I pulled back, my hands running over his face of their own volition, drinking it in. The fullness of his bottom lip, the suggestion of a cleft in his chin, his nose thinking about hooking at the end but then refusing. His cheek bones. His high forehead. Those mismatched eyes that never look like a flaw in his face.

There is nothing I wouldn’t do for him in that moment.

That frightens me as well. But not until later. Now I am busy demanding to know how bad his wounds are, if he needs to see someone.

“See who, Sarah?” he laughs at me. “I will be completely healed in a few days, as though nothing ever happened.” I remain unconvinced and he makes an annoyed motion.

“There. Bandaged.” He pulls up his sleeve to show me some spangly glittery white fabric over the cuts on his arm.

I stare at it.

“You’ll get glitter in the wound!” I exclaim indignantly.

“It’s spider silk!” He says, exasperated. “From the labyrinth. To promote healing. Now, stop fussing, my love. I cannot stand around for one moment longer, I need to do something … energetic.” Then he looks at me sideways and I expect him to propose something filthy, but all he says is, “When did you last ride a horse?”

It’s been more than a decade since I rode a horse. But it would not have helped me, since the horses he transports us to meet? Water horses.

Yeah.

I spent the entire time doing my best not to scream into Jareth’s back. I didn’t always succeed. It was terrifying. And I couldn’t even walk afterwards, though I will concede that that might have happened even if he had only made me ride a regular horse that fast.

I nearly collapsed into his arms as he finally pulled me off the beast’s back, but he just laughed at me and magicked us away to a fairy pub somewhere, saying that alcohol would loosen up my muscles.

He had changed my clothes to what I can only assume was some sort of unholy goblin love child between a riding habit, a wetsuit and more damned leather armour. I never actually got a very good look at it, however, since we of course got completely soaked. As we arrived in the tavern, Jareth transformed my clothes back to what they had been. With minor adjustments. The fabric was better. The stitching was finer. My shoes were _much_ nicer. And I think he’d done something to my hair.

But I couldn’t be bothered arguing about my hair by that point. I’d had to watch my lover forced to fight for his life, I’d been threatened with the magical equivalent of drugging, enslavement and rape, and then to “celebrate” those things not happening, I’d been dragged onto a wild fairy horse.

It had been a trying night.

Since I had never gotten my promised trattoria dinner, he ordered me food -- well, demanded that someone bring me food, emphasising menacingly that it had better be safe for humans -- and poured us some very big goblets of wine from a carafe I think we were supposed to finish. The thought was not unpleasant. Particularly as my legs were so stiff that Jareth had to help me sit down.

His eyebrows moved into a concerned sort of shape that I hadn’t seen them make before. “Perhaps you should walk around. It will be different when you have changed. You will not be injured so easily -”

“ _When_ I’ve changed?” I say, indignant, completely distracted from my painful muscles. “Into a goblin, you mean? I think you’re counting your chickens before they’re hatched, you -”

But he’d kissed me by then, so my next words, “arrogant” and “presumptuous”, sort of came out squished and muffled. I gave up talking as a bad job and kissed him back, twining my hands behind his head. 

After a moment or two he pulled back and shook his head at me, smiling.

“Oh, no, Sarah,” he says, murmuring the next right into my ear, the glee barely contained in his voice. “Not presumptuous. _You_ described yourself as “the future queen” in the story you told the sprites, back in the forest.” He sits back, slightly, triumph alight in his eyes. “And then you held me like your life depended on it. You even tried to fly to my side, when I was still all teeth and claws. So let’s not play games. You will be my wife. And then you will be the goblin queen.”

He doesn’t even say it like he’s trying to bully me into anything. He is not being manipulative; he is … _happy_ , and, more than that, he is trying to insist upon honesty.

_For once_ , a little voice whispers in my head. _When it suits him_.

But I look at him. I nearly lost him tonight. I feel sick at the very thought.

“In principal,” I say as firmly as I can. “I agree to marry you in principal. But you haven’t fulfilled your promise to explain all the details, how it would work. And we have not yet agreed to terms. We may not be able to. So I am still reserving the right to walk away.”

“Walk away?” It’s his turn to be indignant now. “I will tell you how it will work; I will be your servant, your slave. My kingdom, my wealth and power, my magic; it will all be yours. I want to love you for the rest of your life. And you want to walk away?”

“The devil is in the details,” I said firmly, narrowing my eyes at him. But slightly ruining the effect by smiling. Then climbing into his lap and sitting astride him, the better to kiss him as comprehensively as I could.

Then the ghost of a memory came to me; _“Do as I say and I will be your slave.”_

And my kiss falters. I pull back slightly.

We may have bickered and squabbled and disagreed over minor things over the last few months, since we’re both basically pains in the ass, but I have never yet actually refused to comply with something he wanted. I had never done anything that made him really, properly angry.

Perhaps we are only getting along so well because my -- my _obedience_ had not yet come up.

For a split second, I was afraid of what was in store.

The last time he offered to be my slave, he wanted me to give up trying to retrieve my baby brother. This time, it would be our children at stake. His and mine.

My children.

The thought was like a stimulant.

Like hell was I was going to be blinded by pretty words.

I pull back a little more, and look him in the eye.

“I love you. Very much,” I say. “But you are going to make the tiniest details crystal clear and any arrangements we come to are going to be acceptable to me -- particularly regarding any children we may have -- or yes, I am walking away. You will deal fairly with me if I am to be your wife and queen or you are not fit to have either.”

He buries his head into my shoulder for a second, sighs, and then straightens up, a small, wry smile suggested about his lips. “This _is_ one of the reasons why I love you, Sarah.”

“That’s not an answer.” My voice is all steel.

“You know that I’m more afraid of you right now than I was of my opponent in the ring.”

_“Jareth.”_

“Yes, yes! I already said yes. It is not my fault that you do not believe me.”

I goggle at him and he laughs and kisses me again. I kiss him right back. Like I’m intoxicatingly in love with him and I could have lost him today.

We got pretty drunk after that. My food, when it arrived, was dumped on the table with a muttered “get a room” (we had been making out for quite a while) but was actually quite nice, some sort of stew that I really really hoped was made from chicken. Jareth yelled for music while I ate and when the band turned up, he produced an prehistoric-looking flute that I would have sworn was carved of bone, and played with them for a song or two, for my amusement.

Thank god I had already made my very uncompromising speech. Because it was fucking hot. I didn’t even know you could make playing a wind instrument sexy. But again, it reminded me that he was something primal, something elemental, a fallen, reduced deity that wanted me, wanted to spend eternity with me, wanted me to bear his children, wanted to love them forever.

I was going to do this. But it was going to be scary.

 


	6. Ring-free fingers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will Sarah finally get some answers? :)
> 
> Word count: 5565

My name is Sarah. You know my story. I’m all grown up now, a university professor in her mid-30s… and I might possibly be thinking about marrying the goblin king.

But that wasn’t what I was thinking about just now. I was thinking about projectors and temperamental DVD players, actually. I was hosting a screening for my students. I had booked one of the smaller of the college’s auditoriums -- it only seated about 50 -- since attendance was not compulsory. The students were freely able to borrow copies of the films we covered in my course from the media library, although I suspected most of them just downloaded them from the internet.

I didn’t really have to stay while the movies played (and I didn’t always), but I enjoyed it. I didn’t just love the movies, I liked seeing the students’ reactions to them -- when they laughed, what they talked through, what bits made them go completely silent -- and I liked talking to them about the films afterwards.

I decided it was time to start.

“OK, everyone, stop playing with your phones and listen for a minute. Here we have the 2003 _Peter Pan_ , notable for being not only less racist than the Disney version, but also for playing up the seductive quality of the fae -- mostly Peter Pan himself, who we have to count as one in this depiction. I want you to think about immortal boys sneaking into bedrooms with promises of forever, desirous of the words and stories of humans. Think about the way that Wendy is very blatantly here on the cusp of maturity, the twilight time between childhood and womanhood. Keep in mind that 12 was the legal age of consent in Victorian England. Think about consent in general; the children have to agree to stay in the Never Never Land, for instance.

“I also want you to think about our theme of the fae as fallen, reduced nature deities, pushed into the hidden corners of the universe -- think about the ways that Peter Pan is a Puck-ish or Pan-like figure in this particular adaptation. And yes, that is Lucius Malfoy playing Captain Hook.

“I will leave the lights on low, both so that you can jot down any notes that come to you, but also because I find it leads to fewer of you falling asleep.”

They tittered at all the right bits during this little introduction and I hit the “play” button on the remote satisfied. But then I noticed that something just didn’t feel right. The back of my neck was prickling as I scanned the room as discreetly as I could, watching students settling into their chairs.

There. Seated near a side exit. Slumped so far down his chair that I probably wouldn’t have ever noticed him, particularly with that blond hair covered with the sort of flat cap that some of my cooler students wear (ironically, of course).

I sidled over to him as the opening credits started, wondering how long he’d been there.

“These screenings are not open to the public,” I said tartly, but in a low voice, trying not to distract too many of the students.

He tipped his hat at me then moved it back slightly so it didn’t cover his eyes so much. I had a wild thought of him whipping it off and waving it, yelling “tra la la!” Instead, he smiled at me in a “yep, you caught me, and I am not even a bit abashed” sort of way.

“Well, I did think in my case -”

“Is everything ok, professor?”

 _Oh, bless,_ I thought. It was one of my burlier sports-scholarship students (I have several every year, which baffles me as much as the fact that they always seem to enjoy the class), up from his seat, all protective. I smiled reassuringly at him.

“Yes, Philip, everything’s fine. This is my…” I faltered, as ever having trouble finding a word to describe what Jareth was to me. My dark-seducer-antagonist-boyfriend-future-goblin-husband didn’t exactly roll off the tongue, and even that didn’t cover it all.

“Her _fiancé_ ,” Jareth supplied gleefully. I turned to him.

“We are not using that word yet. You are my ‘it’s complicated’.”

“I don’t see why. You have said that you will marry me -”

“Do you see a ring on this finger?” I asked, holding my left hand up and waving my digits at him.

“I would put a ring on that finger _right now_ if you would let me -”

“If you insist on staying,” I said loudly over him (apparently we’d abandoned being inconspicuous. Thank goodness the credits were still rolling. At least the kids hadn’t missed any of the film whilst learning too much about my personal life), “you can at least go and find a seat in the back row. I will join you there in a minute,” I said firmly, pushing him away with a little shove.

His shoulder felt delicious under my fingers. I almost grabbed him back again.

I turned to Philip instead, who was looking a bit like he’d had trouble keeping up ... but also like he wanted to grin but didn’t know if it was really appropriate. I suppose our dynamic probably was amusing to outsiders.

“Everything’s fine, Philip, you can go back to your seat. Show’s over, folks, movie’s starting,” I said a little louder, seeing how many other students were watching, wide-eyed. I could hardly blame them. Jareth did make a very attractive figure, striding up the stairs to the back row.

He was wearing a supremely fashionable-looking pair of jeans and what hair was visible under his hat seemed blonder and curlier than usual (I wondered what he’d say, if I asked him if whether he’d just waved his hand at it or actually bleached it. I suspected he’d just pretend he hadn’t heard me). I collected my stuff and followed him up the back.

I felt a bit like I might be blushing.

I mused over why I would be blushing at students seeing that I had an unbelievably hot boyfriend.

I think I’d answered my own question.

I plonked down next to the seat he’d picked and got out a notepad and pen. He looked at me enquiringly and I put my finger to my lips impatiently, motioning with my hand at my students watching the movie.

 _You’re hiding in one of my screenings? You stalk me at work now? Really??_ I wrote at the top of the page.

I went to hand him the pen but he just smirked at me and tapped the notepad with his finger.

_I missed you, darlingheart._

The words materialised on the page, but not in the teacher-y blue ballpoint scrawl I was used to seeing there. These were in a black-brown ink that looked like it should have come from a fountain pen or a quill. I found myself thinking wildly of Jane Austen, of Darcy’s letter to Elizabeth -- no, of Captain Wentworth’s letter to Anne Elliot at the end of _Persuasion_ , about precious feelings and pierced souls.

I had never considered handwriting sexy before. But I barely took in any of the meaning of what he had written, I was so mesmerized. It was so… _graceful_ , elegant but also strange, like the font on a Tim Burton movie poster.

I thought of Lord Byron. His handwriting would have looked like this. I should google it.

I pulled myself together. Really, I chided myself, what did I imagine Jareth’s handwriting would look like? A greengrocer’s scrawl full of incorrect apostrophes?

Now, what had he said? Oh yes. He missed me. What nonsense.

_You saw me last night!_

He shook his head ruefully.

_More like four days for me, precious one._

I goggled at him. Time moved differently in faery, but I didn’t think it was that different.

_That’s not… usual, is it?_

_I think my kingdom is teasing me, asking me what the hold-up is, in bringing it its queen. I meant it before when I told you I would put a ring on that finger this very day, beloved._

I paused again, gazing at that last word. So many loops. He’d finished the “d” with a swirl at the top. My own writing looked plain, functional, mundane. I felt wretched and deficient for a moment next to this beautiful man with his beautiful words until I remembered that the “d” I was staring at was the last letter in the word “beloved”. Referring to me.

_You still haven’t kept your promise and explained everything to me. There is still too much that I don’t know. _

_You know that I love you._

_I know that you are manipulative and sly and efficient with the truth._

_You flatter me, dearest._

“Professor?”

I jumped; one of my students was a foot from me and I hadn’t even seen her coming.

“Yes, Jade?”

“May I be excused to use the rest room?”

“You don’t need to ask permission, you go right ahead, honey.”

This was another type that turned up a lot in my classes; the type that didn’t quite know that they were an adult yet. I had often meant to survey my colleagues to see if it was just me that got them.

I turned back to Jareth and the notebook. It was blank.

I motioned at the white page, speechless and gutted. I could hardly blame him for staring at me blankly, confused. “Where did our conversation go?” I finally whispered.

“I removed it -- you surely didn’t want Miss Rest Room to see that?”

“Bring it back!”

He stared at me, and motioned almost imperceptibly over the page again. Just like that, all the words were back, even _beloved_ with its elaborate “d” _._ I tore the sheet out of the notepad, folded it in quarters and held it to my chest for a moment before putting it in my bag, safe.

Meanwhile, the goblin king looked absolutely baffled, so after a moment of him staring at me, I wrote on the next page, by way of explanation, _You’ve never written me anything before. I’d never even seen your handwriting._

He considered this; I watched his expression as he realised that it was likely true. Then he looked me hard in the face for several long moments, enquiringly, clearly torn between suspicion and triumph, and then finally, as I started to blush again, a small smile made its way across his face. He flexed his fingers as though he wanted to touch me but knew that I wouldn’t permit it in the current circumstances. He took my hand in the end, twining his beautiful fingers in between mine.

 _I will pen sonnets for you, my precious Sarah._ (My stomach actually dropped at the sight of my name.) _I will put down thousands of words telling of my love and desire for you. I will write poetry of your beauty -- reams of reams of it -- until you roll those wondrous wide eyes at me._

I ducked my head. I felt like a silly schoolgirl and yet also terribly, terribly pleased. I wriggled my hand out of his so I could reply.

_I don’t think reams will be necessary._

He hesitated, but then tapped the notepad again.

_We do not write often. The written word leaves too much out, even as it pretends to record the whole truth. But I regret now that I never penned anything for you before. If I write here that you are my everything, my entirety -- my hope, my faith, my life -- do you think I might kiss you, Sarah?_

I gave him a beat.

_Nope._

He slumped dramatically back in his chair.

 _I am at_ work _. While goblin kings may be allowed to make out with anyone they like whenever they like, these things are frowned upon in modern human employment situations. So either sit in your chair quietly and watch the movie, or go away and I’ll see you later. _

He settled into his seat, folding his hands meekly. I took the opportunity to add _Also, you are actually_ not _allowed to make out with anyone but me, just so we’re clear. I wouldn’t want my statement to be taken as the whole truth._

His mouth twisted in a little pleased smile and he nodded. Apart from asking me at one point whether it was appropriate for a children’s movie to be so sexually charged, he behaved himself admirably.

And then he left, kissing my hand and promising to see me in a few hours once I had finished my modern human employment.

When I got home to my flat, he was already there, waiting for me. He was all over me before I’d even gotten properly in the door, murmuring endearments as he kissed his way over my face, twining his hands in my hair.

“No, wait, you hold your horses,” I said as his hands slid under my top. They had done nothing more than wind around my waist and my back, but I wanted to keep things clothed, for the time being. I made my way inside the door and kicked it closed. “You practically admitted it yourself. We need a Q&A session. A long one. It’s overdue.”

He pulled back, looking at me, his mouth in a firm line, his eyes wary.

“It’s holding up the _wedding plans_.” I said, waving my ring-free fingers at him again.

Finally, he tilted his head a little, looking at me slightly sideways. “Surely long conversations between lovers are best _after_ they have laid down together? When both parties are relaxed?”

“Forget it, buster. I have a list,” I said, producing it. I carried it everywhere now.

He gave it the honour of flicking his eyes to it for a moment. “All right,” he said, and then proceeded to put his arms around me again, kissing his way along my jawline.

“Stop that,” I said, batting him away. Though I may have been laughing a little. 

“I am not even allowed to kiss your cheek?”

“That was sexy kissing and you know it.”

He pouted slighty, his eyes dangerous. I extracted his hands from under my shirt and took a step backwards. I looked at him, all sulky like a schoolboy. And then I realised.

“You’re scared?” I asked in wonder. He looked up at me, annoyed, his spine snapping straight, but I pressed on. “What are you afraid of?”

His eyes flashed. “State your questions,” he said imperially, his voice deep and nasal.

I opened my mouth and closed it again. Arguing with him instead of asking things seemed pointless.

“Question one, then. What does the goblin queen do? What would my duties be?”

He relaxed visibly. And smiled.

“Rule with me.”

“What does that mean?” I asked. My free hand may have landed on my hip.

“We take care of the kingdom, keep the goblins from getting into too much mischief. We entertain the nobles and amuse ourselves,” he said, his arms snaking around my waist again.

I wiggled my shoulders back so I could look properly in his face. “That’s it? Is that what you do? Just whatever you like, all day long?”

“What did you think I spent my time doing? Cutting ribbons at museum openings? Supervising my parliament? I’m the absolute monarch of a magical kingdom.”

“Ok, so… how will my role be different to yours?”

“What do you mean, precious one?”

“I mean, if you’re the existing ruler, am I just the interloper who you took a fancy to -”

“Sarah, my kingdom is actively courting you. You are the Conquerer of the Labyrinth. You will not be seen as an interloper.”

“OK, but you’re still the existing ruler, and the king. Is it a patriarchal system? Does the king actually have all the power and the queen just stands around being obedient and decorative?”

“Sarah, I cannot imagine you for _one moment_ standing around being obedient and decorative. You are to rule by my side. There has not been a queen for… a long while, but the king and queen are traditionally equals. You and I are to be married, joined. How could we be joined with such a disparity as you describe?”

“But… if we rule, absolutely, as equals, what if we disagree?”

“Then we will debate the issue until somebody wins. Or the problem resolves itself.”

I let that sink in for a moment. That all sounded fine. I was, therefore, suspicious. But for now I couldn’t think of any more questions so I moved down my list.

“How did you become the king?”

“These questions seem idle, my love. I do not see why you could not have posed them naked and spent in my arms.”

“Don’t you dare. If my children are to be next in line to the goblin throne, I need to know how they ascend it. And descend it. Is our first child automatically the next ruler? What if they want to stay human? What if it’s a girl? What is she doesn’t want to be queen? Is abdication allowable?”

He squeezed me, laughing. “It isn’t a bureaucracy, precious one! It is a magic place, it picks its own ruler. It picked me, it showed the previous king who it wanted, and he declared me his heir.  No one was surprised. I was a court favourite. I had a beautiful face and a beautiful voice and the most talent with the kingdom’s magicks. I was wild and charming and arrogant and -- what did you say in your story the other day -- _skilled with the womenfolk_.

“But unfortunately, like my predecessor, I could not find a partner to share it with me. There was no one, no one I wanted to spend all my days with. Not until I found a slip of a girl, running between trees and over water, with ribbons in her hair and poetry on her lips -”

“You are just telling me a romantic story now.”

“It _is_ a romantic story, beloved.”

“That doesn’t get you out of answering questions. What happened to the last king?”

“He was very old. He faded.”

“So he wasn’t challenged like you were, in the faery wood? You didn’t … kill him?”

“A challenge is very rare, Sarah. I don’t think I’ve been challenged for a good two centuries at least. Because, as I say, the underground will choose its own ruler in the end. Do you remember how the labyrinth itself tried to prevent you from taking back your brother? Do you think that such a place would allow itself to be governed by some puppet upstart? That it would not heave off someone daring to attempt to rule it without its approval?”

“So the next ruler won’t necessarily be one of our children at all?”

“I… cannot tell you. Although it is probably likely.”

“And if they do not want to rule? Or go to faery at all?”

“The kingdom is proud; I doubt it will come and snatch away any child of ours who has refused to join us, who wants to live and die a human. And yes, it will allow a ruler to leave who wants to. If its ruler resents it, wants to be free of it, it cannot thrive. Much the same as a marriage.” He looked down at fingernails. “I believe I have given you an easy segue to your next question,” he said coolly, not looking up.

The next point on my list was “marriage breakdown”. I’d been dreading this one.

“Do goblins have divorce?” I asked, looking straight at him, even if he wouldn’t look at me.

“Our marriage has not even occurred and you already want to know how to get out of it?”

“That is emotionally manipulative and you know it.”

He exhaled out of his nose and then lifted his chin, looking into my face again. When he spoke, he sounded detached, academic.

“There are conditions under which the marriage may be severed. Death, of course. Cruelty, including abandonment. Sexual incompatibility. Sterility. If one of us were to go missing, the other could be declared widowed after a certain amount of time had passed.”

“And these would apply to both of us? The fact that you are the king changes nothing?”

“Sarah, I told you, the king and queen are equal by tradition. Female goblins are more rare but they are not lesser. We are not barbarians.”

“Well, humans can be. In plenty of human cultures over time, it was actually treason for a queen to cheat on her husband, and yet the king could do whatever he wanted. I am asking these questions because I need to know what I am in for, Jareth. I need to know what is expected of me, how I am to be treated.”

“You are to be treated as a queen! To stand at my side, my equal, my beloved -”

“Words, Jareth, these are just pretty words! I need to know, if you decide that you are tired of me, if you cast me aside, what will happen to me?”

He stared at me for a moment and then laughed. “Sarah, I cannot believe that you would even ask me such a thing. I am _dangerously_ in love with you. I nearly let myself fade because you did not want me, all those years ago, and that was without one single word of encouragement on your part. Now that I have had you in my arms, now that you have told me you love me and showed me that you want me -- the idea of not loving you, of giving you up, is impossible.”

He tried to embrace me again; again, I stepped away. “We will have a long, happy life together,” he said. “Although you would not guess it from this conversation,” he added forlornly. I did not let him distract me.

“Every couple approaching marriage in this whole damned country promise to spend their lives together. Yet we have a divorce rate nearing 50 per cent. And those couples are not even literally talking about forever as a possibility! Even if we have a happy life together, at first, how long are we talking about? Are you going to be dangerously in love with me in fifty years? A hundred? Two hundred? What if becoming a goblin changes me? Or becoming a mother? Both are likely. How could they not? You cannot promise me that you’re going to love that other woman, that future version of me. So I need to know what happens to me if you don’t.”

Jareth’s face was moving from incredulous to stern and withdrawn, a sure sign, I had learnt, that he was unhappy. I went on, in a softer voice.

“If you were a human man, and we were talking about a human marriage, I would have a pre-existing idea about what would happen if things don’t go to plan. I know how our divorce laws work in this world. I need to know what happens in your world when a relationship fails. I need to know what my options are, what my recourse will be.”

“You do not trust me.”

“Jareth, for some bizarre reason, I do now trust you. But I also know that you can be temperamental, and spiteful, and manipulative. So, again, I am going to ask: if you decide that you don’t want me any more, what happens?”

His mouth twisted a little, but after a moment, he said, “The same thing that will happen to me, should you decide that you didn’t want me any more. We would live apart. Same as any other couple under or aboveground. And eventually, if we did nothing to prevent it, our marriage would break.”

“Break? How? Who decides that? It’s not like you have lawyers and a court system -”

“Sarah, you are thinking of this as a meaningless contract between humans, a piece of paper that can be torn up. I might look human, but I am not human. Our bond will be a real thing and if it breaks, you will know. Our marriage will be a part of you. You will feel it. I was going to find the right time to tell you this, but… well. You will feel your union with the kingdom, and you will feel your union with me.”

I rocked back on my heels, absorbing what he had said. Some logical part of my brain wondered if I ought to find the idea terrifying, but it actually sounded… right. I had always hated how insincere marriage had seemed, meaningless, broken at the slightest whim, like my parents’ one had been. It had never sat well with my romantic nature.

The idea of my marriage being real, of it magically forging a link between us, sounded pretty good to me.

“How?” I asked eagerly. “Will I feel it all the time? Will I be able to see it?”

Jareth blinked at me for a long moment and then a little laugh burst out of him, his face splitting into one of his rare grins. And then he kissed me. Not the deliberately distracting kisses of five minutes ago; these were the kind of kisses you give someone when you just need to kiss them because you love them.

“ _What??_ ” I asked, ducking as he went to kiss me again.

He looked giddy, relieved. “My precious one, I have been putting off telling you that our marriage will be a true joining between us because I was afraid that it would frighten you away, that you were not so much in love with me to want such a thing, or that you would use it as an excuse.

“And yet, you strange thing, you brighten at the idea and then demand practical details.” He pulled me closer to him and I let him, this time. “You surprise me, Sarah. I should not forget who you are. I should not forget that the girl I saw with poetry on her lips and ribbons in her hair was also wearing sensible shoes. Of course you want to know all the details.

“The fact is, I cannot answer some of these questions. The bond is different for each couple. As to what happens, should we separate and our marriage break -- the kingdom itself will decide. I have been its king for a very long time. Perhaps I will stay the king and you will stop being the queen; or perhaps the kingdom will break with us, forming two new domains. Or perhaps you will become such a favorite that I will be cast out completely, in disgust, for daring to lose your favour.”

“But what if something happens before then? What if something happens and we separate before our children are grown, before I become a goblin, before I’m queen?”

His tongue darted over his top lip. He looked wary again. “Sarah, you become the goblin queen the moment we marry.”

“But I’ll be human! I’ll live aboveground -- you said -” I wracked my brain for what he had said, exactly. “You said we could live here, that we could raise our children here, together. You said that until I was ready to go and live in the goblin city permanently, I could stay human.”

His eyes had dropped but flicked up to my face again. “Is that what I said?” He asked delicately.

“Yes! I --” Oh, that _bastard_. My forehead actually hurt from the tightness of my frown. I rubbed it and then pinched the bridge of my nose for good measure. “Goddammit Jareth. Who knows what you actually said. Which part of what you let me believe was not quite the truth?”

“Sarah, I never told you that you would stay completely human. It is not my fault that you made assumptions.” His voice somehow managed to be cold and controlled but defeated and pleading as well. So, as before, when I’ve wanted the truth from him, I looked at his eyes.

They were beseeching me, like his voice. But they were also the tiniest bit afraid.

 _Hmph_. _Afraid I’ve caught him out in manipulative half-truths or afraid that I will blame him for my own mistake and punish him for it?_

I decided questions were pointless. “Keep talking,” I said instead.

“We can raise our children aboveground. They will be human. But the goblin queen cannot be human. You will look human, you will feel human, but your transformation will start as soon as we marry. There is nothing that can change that. Because of your link to me and to the kingdom.

“I cannot tell you what the changes will be or how quickly they will happen because I do not know. When a child is taken,” his eyes slid down again at these words, knowing the issue is a sore point with me, “the magic of the place seeps into them differently every time. Some children become regular goblins, small things with no magic of their own. Others retain their human shape and gain the larger goblin form you have now seen, and they become goblin nobles. Some are able to manipulate the kingdom’s magicks the way that I do. As the queen, you are more or less guaranteed to acquire sorcery and shapeshifting abilities, as the underground changes you.

“Staying out of faery will slow the process down. If you decide that you want to retain as much as your humanity for as long as possible, then it is what I advise.”

I pictured myself transporting myself places by magic, doing my hair by magic, creating visions. Healing quickly. Being affected by little children clapping and shouting “I do believe in fairies!” Then something occurred to me.

“What if we… don’t marry? If we wait until after our children are grown?”

The fear in his eyes increased.

“That would not be … wise. I could not guarantee the safety of our offspring if the union of their parents is not seen as being ... set in stone. And my feelings prohibit such an action. I know that in the human culture you live in, now, this is not the taboo that it has been in the past, but traditionally with the fae, royal children are born in wedlock. It is even possible that I may not actually be able to father a child upon you under other circumstances.”

His answer was actually a relief. While the prospect of losing my humanity much sooner than I had imagined was a daunting one, I did really want to marry him. Particularly now that I knew it would genuinely mean something. But his answer brought me to my next question.

“And so you’ve… never fathered children before?”

“Sarah, I’ve told you. The kingdom has not had any children born into it for many years. It needs a fertile couple at the helm to do so. I could not find anyone I wanted for my queen for a very long time.”

“How long, Jareth? How old are you?” I kept my voice soft, expecting him to like this question as little as the one about divorce.

He looked at me for a moment.

And then he took off his shirt.

“How old do you think I am?” He asked, looking down at himself, running his hands down his chest, slowly.

“Older than you look.” I said pointedly, crossing my arms. Mostly to keep them to myself.

“Yes, you’re right. I am _much_ older than I look. You will be marrying a very, very old man,” he said, circling me before pausing behind me to whisper in my ear: “I don’t know how you will be able to stand it.”

“You’d think an ancient old man would be able to keep up a serious conversation,” I said, but not crossly.

“This ancient old man can keep up all sorts of things,” he said, and then hoisted me up in his arms as if I weighed nothing. “But not conversation. I find as the evening wears on that I need my young bride-to-be to reassure me that she finds my decrepit old frame alluring enough to consummate our nuptials.”

And there was no more conversation for a good long while.

And after we’d been lying there in each other’s arms, worn out and satisfied, for several minutes, getting our breath and giving each other little random kisses, he smoothed my hair out of my face and said, softly, “I cannot actually tell you exactly how old I am, Sarah. Not by your years. Time moves differently in faery and as it is, none of the goblins were ever able to tell me when exactly it was that I was left for them. It has been many of your centuries since I become king, though, and I was a prince for many before that. Will that do, darlingheart?”

I nodded and kissed him again. Not a kiss because I was full of a sudden happy need to kiss him; not a kiss because I was inspired by lust; not a kiss to reward him. It was simply because I loved him, and he was beautiful, and we were trying. And that was enough.

That was good.

 


	7. Proposal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We were given a drabble prompt over at the Labyfic community on LiveJournal, "proposal". I realised I hadn't actually shown Sarah talking to her friends from the Labyrinth about what was going on with her and Jareth and decided it was the perfect opportunity.
> 
> Hope it makes you all smile :)
> 
> Word count: bang on 100

“Did he … get down on one knee?” Sir Didymus asked.

Sarah had invited the knight, as well as Hoddle and Ludo, to her flat, to tell them that she was considering marrying the goblin king.

“Not exactly,” Sarah said. “He didn’t … actually propose at all. He just said he wanted me to be his wife. And then he informed me I was going to marry him. And, um, I told him that unless everything was organized exactly the way that I wanted it, it was never happening.”

A moment’s silence.

“Very good,” said Hoggle.

“Sarah friend!” said Ludo.

 


	8. Return to the Labyrinth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sarah needs to go back. She does. Because otherwise they're just wasting their time. She doesn't want them to be wasting their time.

My name is Sarah. I may have just tied up the goblin king.

In a sex way, you understand; not in a you-are-now-my-prisoner kind of way.

I didn’t plan for the evening to work out this way. We’d never particularly ventured into kink before. But the fact is, the man was being impossible. He would insist on driving me far too crazy on a night I wasn’t feeling very passive and in the end I told him that if he didn’t stop, I was going to tie him up.

“Oh, Sarah,” he had drawled into my neck as he continued doing exactly what he had been doing, causing me to arch my spine with quite the desperate moaning noise, “You are going to have to learn to stop making promises that you cannot keep.”

This was, of course, not to be borne, and led to me reaching for a silk scarf that I kept by the bed for some reason, but never actually wore. I grabbed one wrist and then the other, tying him to the top of the bed and then having my way with him.

Which I assume was his intention. Especially since he could have freed himself at any time.

“Well, that was relaxing,” he said with a wide smile, rubbing his wrists once I untied him. “Although you know that I now feel that it’s only fair to return the favour?”

“We can talk about it once I, too, have the ability to magic away silk scarves,” I said firmly.

He pouted and then pounced on me like a cat, pushing me onto my back and kissing me soundly. Once he had checked that all of my body parts were still where they should be, he pulled back and smiled at me in a satisfied sort of way. “All right,” he said. “Now, questions.”

My mouth may have dropped open. “What, just like that? Normally you use every trick in your arsenal to avoid a Q&A session.”

“Ah, no, precious. Tonight it’s my turn to ask the questions. I have a list,” he said, waving a scroll of parchment at me that he’d produced from nowhere and then proceeded to ask me, with a briskness most unlike him, all sorts of particulars on topics ranging from how many children I wanted and how soon we were allowed to start producing same, to what sort of human wedding I wanted, to where exactly aboveground I wanted to live (he produced a map with certain areas blacked out and others highlighted), to my favourite sorts of architecture, landscaping, décor and colour schemes (he had to use a crystal to show me some of what he was talking about because I had never even heard some of the terms he was using -- porte cochere? Carved spandrel panels? Parterre? What?) and finally, how much space I required in an ideal bedroom, nursery and home office/library.

“These details can all be changed quite easily, of course, but I would prefer to start on the right foot. Now,” he added, his eyes sliding at me sideways. “What are you doing on the summer solstice?”

“Something with you, I expect. What is it, the twentieth of this month? Let me check my diary,” I said, reaching for it by the bed. It had a silk scarf draped half over it and I smiled a little to myself.

I waved the empty page at him as I snuggled back into his arms, a bit tired by now. “Big old nothin’ planned,” I said. “Why?

He tapped the page. It now said, in that beautiful old-fashioned cursive writing of his, _Midsummer Eve Ball._

“Wait, what?” I said.

“It is a tradition,” he said, smoothing a wrinkle out of the sheet over us a bit too casually. “The fae kingdoms always have one, to mark the changing of the seasons. This year is our year to host.”

I pulled back from him. Snuggling was officially over.

“A ball. You are hosting a ball. And you want me to come. I can’t believe you, Jareth, you tried to use a ball to trick me on my last visit to the labyrinth, it was one of the most _unconscionable_ parts of that entire evening twenty years ago -”

“Can I remind you that you won that particular round, twenty years ago? Much as you have won _all_ the rounds so far in our history? Anyway, that wasn’t even a true goblin ball. As if we don’t have complete chandeliers and entire columns in our ballroom. _You_ manifested that particular ball all those years ago, and you pulled us all in with you.”

“You are so  -- wait, I did?”

“Yes, I only sent you the ingredients for a hallucination, it was up to your mind how it resolved itself. It could have been practically anything. Well, including me. I didn’t realise you were going to involve so many others as well. So much power you had, even then -”

This was food for thought, but I knew that he was distracting me on purpose. I would not let him.

“So what, this event is your poetic way to show off to everyone that you finally won me over? Well, I am not a prize, I am a person and you -”

“Sarah, this isn’t about that. Of course you are a person, you are to be our queen. You would honour us with your presence. It would be a chance for you to meet some of the other fae kings and queens. Well, if they come. Some are very old and don’t go anywhere any more. Their children may be in attendance.”

Other fae kings and queens. Or princes and princesses. Wow.

I took several deep breaths but he went on before I could say anything else.

“I had to hold the Spring equinox revel without you. You had not yet promised to marry me, but going through the motions and dancing with women I cared nothing about just like I’d done for centuries, and acting as though it didn’t feel empty and hollow, was difficult. I would very much like you to be there this time.”

I felt a stab of jealousy at all those other women and then annoyed suspicion that I was being manipulated.

I dug my heels in.

“Do you really want my first visit back to your kingdom to be an event that, no matter where it’s held or how many fricking entire columns it has, is going to bring the worst bits of our past to the forefront of my mind? Because I don’t.”

“Of course not, Sarah,” he said, back to idly smoothing wrinkles out of the sheets. “And I’m glad you agree, as I wanted to invite you to see the arrangements before the ball. I thought it would give you a good idea of what social life would be like once you are queen, and I’m sure it will give you many new questions to insist that I answer before you will make an honest goblin of me.”

 _God_ , I thought. _Multiple visits back to that place in the next few weeks._

I descended for a moment into panic and then felt a little ashamed. I had gotten caught up in this romance we were having -- _which is exactly what he wanted you to do,_ a sensible corner of my brain reminded me -- and stopped focusing on the big picture.

Sure, I was trying to get him to explain the particulars to me, but it was all academic right now.

This would make it real.

He was right. I needed to go back.

I realized Jareth had started speaking again and snapped to attention, my panic-fuelled adrenalin rush still thundering blood into my ears.

“And there is also the little matter of your quarters in the castle. Our quarters. I do think you should inspect them before we marry, to make sure that they are to your liking.”

I looked at him.

“You’re very practical all of a sudden. I’m not sure it suits you.”

He took my hand and kissed it. I let him. “Sarah, you love me,” he said, speaking softly now. “We are to be wed. You are going to need to come back to the kingdom at some point. It is to be your home.”

He was right. If it did turn out that I just couldn’t face the place, then we were wasting our time, Jareth and I.

I didn’t want us to be wasting our time.

I wanted this man, this magical, romantic, volatile man. I wanted him to be mine forever. I wanted to take that hard, lonely look out of eyes. I wanted to have beautiful babies with cheeky smiles and fabulous bone structure.

I also wanted to get to a point where I didn’t feel like some sort of idiot for relying on him, trusting him, believing that he really did love me.

I figured I’d get there after a century or two.

“Ok,” I said. “When?”

He pulled me back under him.

* * *

We ended up settling on the next Friday night. He would take me to the castle for a tour of its new restored state, including our personal chambers, and then I had agreed to have dinner with him there before visiting the site for the ball and returning home.

I was adamant that I was not staying the night.

We had picked a Friday night as insurance against accidents with faery time. This way even if time moved at ten times the pace -- a speed Jareth assured me was unprecedented in the goblin realm in his experience, despite old stories of maidens spending a night in faery and heading home to find a century had passed -- at least I had the weekend up my sleeve and I wouldn’t miss work on Monday, something that might be noticed.

As it was, the kingdom was extremely well behaved and we needn’t have worried -- but, I confess, I was pleased that Jareth showed enough consideration and empathy to realise that I might find this a problem. There was hope for him yet.

When he arrived to pick me up, I was drumming my fingers on the dining table and stressing out over whether or not I should pack a bag. He had told me not to worry but I had already put a bottle of water in my handbag as a reasonable just-in-case addition.

I had put on several extra pieces of jewellery, in case I needed something for bartering or bribing.

Perhaps I should bring supplies. Food. Rope. A leatherman.

The leatherman went in my handbag too.

Deep breaths.  

Key in the lock.

“Sarah?”

“Let’s just go,” I said, jumping up.

He looked at me for a second, put his arm around me and then, next moment, the castle was looming in front of us.

Except it wasn’t looming at all. It was certainly not the one I had fought my way into, 20 years ago. It looked… prettier. The forbidding fortress high on the hill had a more delicate look to it than it had, like it was willing to acknowledge its own fragility now. It seems an absurd thing to say about a building, but that was the impression I had.

A regiment of goblins was waiting, along with Hoggle, Ludo and Sir Didymus. It was a lovely surprise.

Everybody (well, except Ludo) bowed in a haphazard sort of way to Jareth. Some curtseyed, even though I had a feeling they were all male. There was a general sort of mumbling of “Your Highness”s and “Your Majesty”s and Jareth made an impatient sort of gesture. “And?” He snapped.

“Lady Sarah,” they all said, with more enthusiasm and more bowing and curtseying.

Jareth closed his eyes for a second, taking a deep breath in through his nose. He shooed the regiment away while I hugged my friends.

“This ball thing,” Hoggle said. “Jareth invited us.”

“Oh?” I said, looking around at him.

“We don’t want to go,” Hoggle stage whispered.

I laughed.

“Well, don’t, then,” I whispered back.

“Well, all righty, then,” he said. “May we leave now, your majesty?”

“Yes, yes,” Jareth said impatiently, waving them on. I looked at him properly for the first time since we arrived.

He certainly looked more glittery than he had when he picked me up five minutes ago. And his boots were higher, both up his leg and in the heel. His jacket had turned a lot more medieval, too. And his hair was bigger.

Somehow it seemed fitting in this setting.

I wondered if the Labyrinth wanted its king to look this way, or if it was the other way around.

I vaguely considered telling him to stop being so fucking hot.

He watched me watching him and then put his arm out to me without a word. I took it.

The castle was… well, a castle, really, just more gobliny, but then he took me up a flight of stairs off the throne room to a strange door.

I couldn’t tell you what was strange about it, not really. It was just that it was hard to tell what colour it was. And what shape it was. It was both organic-looking but also carved all around like an Art Nouveau fantasy. One minute a tree was brought to mind as I looked at it and the next, a flower.

“What -” I started, but he just said, “Come and see.”

He opened the door.

It was, apparently, our bedroom. And it was … great. In fact, the room was so great, it was almost a shock.

It was quite big, with an elegant stepped domed ceiling and an enormous curtained bed -- round and much larger than a king size, which I found ironic when I thought about it later -- taking up about a quarter of it. The bed was made up in shades of faded red and pale gold with an upholstered bedhead -- my favourite sort of bedhead -- that matched a pair of hinged wooden screens on either side.

It was lit by fairy lights, but not on strings; just tiny lights dotted throughout the high ceiling, supplementing five small chandeliers. A fireplace wasn’t too far from the bed, with the most beautiful looking rugs and furs heaped in front of it, as well as cushions that looked eminently sink-into-able. I didn’t sink into any of them, however, because at that moment I spot a reading corner, with a chaise longue and an elegant little piecrust table … with my lamp sitting on it.

It’s really a fantastic lamp. It’s technically a designer piece from a fancy Italian lighting manufacturer and it’s beautiful in a vaguely industrial modernist sort of way, but that’s not the main reason why I bought it. I picked it because the thing adjusts in about five different places so you can get the beam of light just right when you’re trying to read.

Mine has a little dent in the base from my last move, and a scratch on the shade from the move before that.

Which is how I know that the lamp sitting there is my lamp.

“Jareth,” I ask, confused, “that’s my lamp. Did you just ... entirely replicate my reading lamp?”

He looks at me in that sideways fashion of his, and I know that he’s about to drop a bombshell. He taps on the base with a fingernail.

“No, my sweet. I believe that this … is your lamp.”

I cross my arms at him and make my “spit it out” face at him. And he grins.

“These living quarters appeared, entirely furnished as you see them, during my restoration of the castle. I didn’t literally go around mending cracks in the walls with cement, you understand. I willed the castle to repair itself and it did so.

“And it changed. It made itself more modern, less medieval-looking and forbidding, which did pique my interest, though not nearly as much as when it created these quarters for me. Since these are clearly the living quarters of a couple.

“I wondered if my kingdom was taunting me, pointing out that you weren’t here. Or if it was preparing for a replacement king who had done the impossible and managed to find a queen. The kindest explanation I could think of was that it was telling me to hurry up and find a wife. Or even that I was going to find one. Either way, I have never yet been able to bring myself to actually sleep in this room.”

“Well, that’s all very interesting,” I said, wondering where he _had_ been sleeping and deciding not to ask. “But that doesn’t explain how my lamp came to be here when last time I checked, it was in my flat.”

He looked at me for a moment and then took my hand. “Come and see the Queen’s dressing rooms.”

It turned out that they were behind the screen on the right side of the bed -- my side of the bed -- and there were quite a number of them, and they were quite big. I wondered if there was a master of the wardrobe around somewhere to keep it all in order.

Just as Jareth had promised, the rooms were full of clothing in my size, each piece lovelier than the next: gorgeous fabrics, invisible stitching,

I loved every bit of it.

I wanted to try on everything and then dump it on the floor and roll around in it all.

But again, I noticed several pieces of clothing that should have been hanging in my own closet, in my flat.

Jareth licked his lips. “You know, that time moves strangely in faerie?”

I nodded.

“Well, it doesn’t just move too slowly or too quickly, it moves... weirdly. Things sometimes happen in what humans might consider the incorrect order. These entire quarters appeared, as you see them, full of clothing in your size and objects to your taste. Including your lamp. Which I was extremely happy to notice in your flat, the first night you summoned me. Because it meant that I had a chance of bringing you here and making you my queen, because the castle was acting as though it had already happened.

“But these things are tricky. The future is rarely a fixed thing. You might have bolted if I had been too confident that I was going to win you over, too arrogant -”

“Wait, that was you trying to not be too arrogant?”

Jareth scrunched up his mouth at me and then, unexpectedly, yanked me to his chest and kissed me.

“You are infuriating and wonderful and I am madly in love with you,” he said, before kissing me again, gentler this time. “And you should know that sometimes these rooms have disappeared. Their presence has never been guaranteed. The door has up and vanished multiple times over the last 20 years.

“The last time it did so was shortly after the wedding I accompanied you to, so many months ago now. You had started covering your mirrors. I kept waiting for calls that never came. And then when your need did summon me again, that night Toby was staying with you, and you told me that you never wanted to see me again, I thought all was cinders and ashes; more so than I would have had the blasted door never existed. So, I did my best that night to be honest with you, to not only clear away your misconceptions, but to show you how I really felt. Because I knew that it was more necessary that night, than my own pride.”

I nodded. “You made yourself very vulnerable that night. Your behaviour changed my mind, I think, as much as your revelation that we were capable of producing human children. Of course,” I added, arching my eyesbrows at him “ _everything_ would probably have been easier up to this point if you had always just been open and honest with me.”

Jareth threw up his hands at this.

“Sarah, what are goblins? What are our leading characteristics?”

Surprised, my mind went blank before suggesting several things that would not have been at all complimentary or kind to say out loud. “Deviousness,” I said, finally. “And a liking of shiny things.”

He smiled at that. And put his arms around me again. “Sarah, your forward, direct questions, your insistence on pining down specific details? I do my best with them, but they would be doing terrible things to my blood pressure if such a thing were possible. Secrets are part of who I am. I am trying to be fair to you but you must be fair to me too. Artfulness is in my nature. And it will become part of yours. The safety of your loved ones, of your people, of your home, will depend upon it.”

I opened my mouth to argue but closed it without saying anything. His point of view sometimes did that to me.

“Now, come,” he said, offering me his arm in a gentlemanly fashion. “It is time to dine.”

 

 

 

 

 

 


	9. Too much sulphur, not enough soap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drabble challenge set over at the Labyfic community on LiveJournal, that had to end with someone going splash into the bog of eternal stench...

Sarah looked down at the bubbling mud, absorbing Jareth’s words. 

“So… You’re telling me that after I was so, so scared of falling into it… After you’ve terrified all your subjects with it for centuries, thinking they would stink forever and ever… It’s just a regular old bog? A stinky bubbling sulphurous one, but a plain old bog nonetheless?”

Jareth’s mouth quirked in that little way it did when he was trying not to smile and not quite managing it. “Soap and water are scarce amongst goblins, precious. Nobody has figured it out yet.”

She reached for him as though she was going to kiss him. 

SPLASH he went, straight in the mud.


	10. The Midsummer Eve ball

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written as a response to Challenge #26 over on the Labyfic community on livejournal. We could write anything as long as it included a pier; and bonus points for putting Sarah in a red dress. 
> 
> Word count: 2864

The first time I went back to the Labyrinth, I packed supplies, just in case.

And, though my first visit back was so positive -- enjoyable, even -- I did the same the second time.

Sure, I was less worried that trip. Jareth came up with a flimsy excuse to get me back to his castle -- something about fitting me for a dress for the ball (as if he couldn’t simply wave his hand to make it fit perfectly) -- that was really just a way to get me undressed in our quarters and finally break in the bed that had been sitting there, mocking him, for more than a decade.

It really was an excellent bed.

But it was the third time -- Midsummer Eve -- that I should have been worried about.

That said, extra jewellery and a bottle of water could in no way have helped me with what happened.

It’s not even like I hadn’t been worried about the ball. I still knew barely anything about fae etiquette and customs -- Jareth said I wasn’t permitted to know too much until I was past the point of no return, as it were -- but also the things that I did know were not exactly relaxing.

I knew that there was a plot to kill him or at least prevent our marriage.

Less life-threatening, though no less stressful, was my nasty suspicion that half the women there would know Jareth far more intimately than I would have liked, if you take my meaning.

The men, too, probably.

A millennium (or so) was a long time to be single and, well, Jareth.

And I was going to spend the night surrounded by fae. Tricksy, tricksy fae. Even if I wasn’t mortally afraid of offending someone -- as well I should be -- or worried they were going to kill my betrothed, the fact was that they were wonderful and magical but also slippery and sly and extremely dangerous.

None of this was real in my flat.

It was real in the Labyrinth.

The fact was, I was not a fairy princess. Or, despite the meaning of my name, any sort of princess. What on earth was I thinking, believing I could marry a king. It’s not like I’m even noble or wise beyond my years or politically minded, even. Or rich.

I might as well have been wearing a paper crown and reciting lines.

All of this must have shown in my face, however, on the night of the ball when Jareth came to get me. He took one look at me and swept me up in his arms, magicking me back to our bedroom in the castle.

“I love you,” he said firmly, afterwards. “I love you, and you are our realm’s honoured guest tonight. Anyone who does not treat you with the utmost respect tonight would have to be a fool. "

I should have heard the lack of guarantee in those words.

The ball itself was to be held on a small island, surrounded by a lake, in the middle of a wooded patch of the kingdom.  A pier that looked like it had been grown there, not built, extended out almost a third of the way there. Guests had to be carried across the rest of the distance by one of the magical boats. It wasn’t possible to get there any other way, not even for those who could fly.

Speaking of which, I had specifically requested the smallest fae, those who had already come to my aid, be invited and ferried across. Somehow or other they had understood and had all piled into one boat, chittering away excitedly.

Jareth and I were placed at the start of the pier, and I was introduced to everyone before they walked down to the boats, at its end. After the first dozen or so dignitaries, I stopped trying to remember who they all were but just smiled as politely and graciously as I could while trying not to look dazed.

I fiddled with my dress to expend some of my anxious energy. It was a sleeveless red thing in some sort of folded silky fabric, with a pattern of white blossom on it and a complicated neckline. It had originally boasted a train but I nipped that right in the bud as both a tripping hazard and a flop-into-the-toilet risk.

It had also begun its life a lot tighter and lower cut. Those tendencies had also been nipped right in the bud.

Jareth had pouted but complied. My hair had also been lowered, as had my heels, and the amount of jewellery I was wearing had been halved.

He had assigned me some sort of lady-in-waiting for the night, a beauty with her red hair in a surprisingly business-like ponytail that showed off her pointed ears. She wore a black tuxedo and I suspected was armed to the teeth. I had also suspected her of being not much more than a pretty bodyguard until she started murmuring comments in my ear about the people Jareth was introducing to me -- how to address them, how important they were in the grand scheme of things -- and I realized that she was exactly the sort of person I needed by my side tonight.

Beth, she told me her name was. I suspected that wasn’t her name at all but I didn’t care, I was so grateful for her existence.

I wished that Jareth had bloody told me about her weeks ago. I would have been much less worried.

But again, given what happened, that would have been a false confidence.

It was also the wrong thing to have wished for him to have worded me up on beforehand.

Finally, there was no one left to meet-and-greet.

Jareth and I hopped on a boat. As we approached the island, I could see why he had picked it. It was just gorgeous.

All the arrangements were beautiful. The wine was delicious. The small talk was polite, if poetic and slightly odd. Everything seemed to go went well during the first and second courses (there were to be ten) and then even better as Jareth led me to the dance floor. What seemed like half the guests joined us, and then about a minute later all hell broke loose.

Jareth and I were ripped away from each other. I screamed before realising that the hands on me belonged to Beth, who had pulled me into a small crowd of other women dressed similarly to her, all with wicked blades in their hands and baring pointed teeth as they hissed, their mouths deforming.

I could barely see around my human shield -- sorry, goblin shield -- but Jareth seemed to be in the middle of a strange struggle that I suspected was largely being conducted using magic.

Suddenly all I could see was backs; a ring of one of the varieties of elves in attendance seemed to have formed around the fight. _Wood elves_ , by brain said, remembering Beth’s voice telling me that the particular brown of their jackets referenced their kingdom.

There was a flash of light and suddenly everything seemed to be over.

The backs moved away to reveal Jareth wrapped in some kind of rope, his arms bound straight to his sides and his hands tied together. His mouth was gagged. I assumed that it was all supposed to stop him doing any sort of magic but really, I had no idea if freedom of hands or speech was necessary to him; perhaps the markings they were burning into the grass around him were actually what would stop him.

“They” -- the ones doing the burning -- were not elves. “They” were clearly goblins. They had changed and were now huge and claw-y, and not able to be mistaken for anything else.

The biggest one laughed, even as swords were pulled out all around him. “No one move,” he said, “or the blond gets it nasty.”

“Touch him and it means civil war, Anwar!” Beth snarled in response. “Jareth’s people will not stand for this. The king’s guard will not stand for this. Look -- even the little ones will not stand for this,” she said, as a cloud of sprites and fairies formed above me, chittering angrily.

One of Anwar’s men stepped forward at that and pulled out an insect sprayer, much like the one that Hoggle had been wielding the first time I ever saw him, except much bigger and more horrible-looking.

“They don’t have to stand ever again,” he said. His smile was awful. “I don’t know why our _king_ ,” he added, and then he spat on the ground at Jareth’s feet, “outlawed spraying you vermin in the first place. I don’t care if you’ve taken a liking to his human pet. You are nothing more than pests and once my Lord Anwar is king, things will be put back into their proper order!”

Jareth was making a particular kind of face that I couldn’t make out at all. The gag didn’t help. He looked proud and disdainful, even on his knees, and slightly unhappy, but also a bit like he was trying to hide the fact that he had a foolproof back-up plan; and if that failed, he also secretly had a dagger in his boot and nude pictures of everyone involved hidden up his sleeve.

He looked over at me and raised his eyebrows slightly as if to say, “well, go on then.”

That _asshole_.

 _What the hell am I supposed to do? What_ can _I do???_

There was absolutely _nothing_ I could do … except try and talk my way out of this.

 _Let’s handle this logically,_ I thought.

What did these people want? _To stop our marriage. To install their faction’s own leader._ But Jareth had said it was the Labyrinth’s choice.

Ergo I had to convince their supporters that overthrowing Jareth would not help them.

I put on a sly, calculating sideways sort of face that Jareth would have been proud of, then lifted my chin arrogantly and said, so calmly that it bordered on offensive, “What do you think is going to happen here, tonight, if you succeed in murdering the goblin king?”

“I will be declared king and we can end this farce!” He roared. His response was met with angry stony faces by nearly everyone present, but his supporters sniggered in an ugly sort of way. He went on.

“Jareth would throw centuries of stability and tradition out the window for the sake of this human he is obsessed with. He thinks a fae king can just go and play at being a man and the balance will not be disrupted? He thinks that after refusing to wed any of our own people, we will not take his plan to put this creature on the throne as the ultimate insult? We are an ancient people and this will not stand! I can show us the way! I will lead us to a new golden age!”

Anwar’s men whooped sycophantically. I shook my head at them and spoke in the kind of voice that reaches to the very ends of lecture halls.

“Do you really think that the kingdom, the Labyrinth itself, will allow that? Do you not think that since it, as well as Jareth, has been courting me for months, it will not instead take _me_ as its next leader?”

His face betrayed a hint of surprise and then fear, but then he sneered, “you are not married to the king yet -”

“I wonder if that is how the Labyrinth sees it. These many months I’ve been up and down faery. I’ve eaten and drank my way across it. More importantly, I made love with its king this very day, in the king’s bed, in the chambers that the castle has already created for us, fitted out just for me. So I wonder exactly _how_ married to the king I need to be for the kingdom to pick me instead of you as its next ruler.”

His mouth puckers like he’s tasted something bitter and he makes to speak but I’m speaking in a lower voice now, forcing him to lean forward to hear me.

“And do you not think that once I am the queen, and I find myself widowed with the blood of my beloved speckling my own floor -- robbed of the future I was supposed to have -- that I will not find the most awful, terrible, sublime ways to make the rest of your long, long life a torturous misery? That I will stop at anything to find out every single creature who helped you, who conspired with you? Do you think I will spare anyone who knew of your plot but made no move to stop you?

“I will make the entire fae world a sticky, bloody mess as I dismantle it in my grief and my desire for vengeance… I will wreak havoc and the Labyrinth will help me, make no mistake about that.”

A specter of me rearing up as a monstrous queen soaked in gore seemed to fill every corner of the place.

I smiled at him. Coldly.

Anwar had been trying to swagger but it’s like my smile changed his mind. “Well, then,” he said, “we kill the Conqueror as well on this night!”

He was interrupted before he could go on, by a new voice.

“Enough of this,” it said, calmly, as its owner came forward out of the crowd.

It was the leader of the wood elves.

“My people withdraw their support of this attempt on the life of Jareth, king of the goblins. We did not know that the Conqueror and the goblin king had already laid down together -” there were some snorts at this (and I distinctly heard one voice say “how _else_ could he have persuaded her to marry him”) but the elf ignored them. 

“If she really has joined with the goblin king on this night she may very well be with child and therefore no one may lay a hand on her. It is one of our oldest laws. We see now how foolish we were in allowing ourselves to be persuaded to support this scheme to overthrow the goblin king. We apologise.

“We also see now that the goblin king has acted much more wisely than we thought, in seeking the hand of the Conqueror. We were told that the king was losing his mind, that he was human-mad and obsessed and would surely ruin his kingdom and taint all of us by introducing a human. Now that we meet the Lady Sarah we see that she has all the makings of a fine fae queen.

“The wood elves will leave now. We shall send an emissary with reparations to you before the summer has ended.”

And with that, the wood elves melted into the shadows.

Wow.

Next thing I knew, dozens of women in tuxedos were materializing everywhere, grabbing goblins and dragging them off. Not just the ones that had openly participated in the plot, either.

You almost would have thought that they’d known exactly who to arrest, all along.

Then Jareth was at my side, free, looking vaguely apologetic but also quite a bit like a cat that had gotten the cream. He led me away from the crowd, into a small marquee that I hadn’t noticed before.

“What the _fuck_?” I said to him, as soon as we were inside. “You knew all along which of your people were in on the plot to overthrow you? Were you actually in any danger at all?”

“Absolutely, my dearest, most glorious treasure. I could very well have lost my head tonight. But you were never going to allow that to happen. I could have taken care of the traitors in my kingdom -- I discovered who they were weeks ago -- but that wouldn’t have helped me with the threat from without. I knew that you would find a way to win over the other fae. Show them your strength and your worth.”

“My _worth_?” I said to him, almost hysterical now. “You are such a _shit_!” I had grabbed his shirtfront and was shaking him by this point. “You just gambled both our lives, as well as the wellbeing of the whole damned kingdom, to bolster your own fucking position -”

“No, I didn’t, precious,” he said gently, putting his hands over mine to stop my shaking. “I had a serious problem, and I got rid of it, by relying on you. It would have caused us all ongoing problems if I hadn’t.”

“You didn’t even warn me! We could have planned a strategy, done this together, but no, you -”

He kissed me then. And I collapsed into it, grabbing his face, his neck.

Then I pulled back to yell at him some more.

“Don’t you ever do something like that again!”

He smiled slyly at me.

Then he pulled me back out into the ball and demanded that the third course be served at once.

 


	11. Two Jareths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> God, there’s two of them. And he’s a filthy, filthy man.
> 
> We were chatting over at the Labyfic collective about how the Labyrinth Funko Pops included two Jareths, and poor Sarah would have her hands full. We decided to make "Two Jareths" last month’s prompt. And since I wrote this one, it was always going to end up this way. 
> 
> Consider this a bit of a filler chapter, you don't need to have kept pace with the rest of the story, just remember that Sarah's in her 30s now and she and Jareth are engaged.

It started like a normal day. Well, a normal-ish day. I was dating the king of the goblins, after all.

I’d asked for something “normal”. He suggested a nature walk and a picnic at some local-ish woods. He was tired of being surrounded by so much steel, he’d said.

We turned a bend in the path and then suddenly, there he was.

Jareth.

I looked at him, and the Jareth by my side, and since I couldn’t see a single thing different about them, I sprung away from the one I was with, and pulled out a steel and silver knife that I’d started carrying. I kind of hadn’t told Jareth about that yet and he -- the one no longer by my side -- looked at it in a mild-ish sort of shock. The other one just smirked.

“Oh, yes, I’d forgotten about the knife,” this other Jareth said, to the Jareth formerly by my side. “We’ll have to remember to talk to her about it. Well, I will,” he added, with something that wasn’t quite a laugh.

And he put his hands up in the air, in a sarcastic sort of way. “Precious,” he said dryly, “please put that away and let me explain. To you both,” he added, looking over at the Jareth formerly by my side, who was now holding something shimmery in his hand that I couldn’t seem to focus my eyes on, but which was probably quite dangerous.

“I’m you,” he went on, “And I can prove it. You’re wondering right now whether I’m a goblin under a glamour, or some other creature. A second ago you wondered when Sarah started carrying such a dangerous-looking knife and what it’s made out of. Before you saw me, you were mostly wondering how private this glade is and if she’d consent to making love in such an open space.”

Jareth-I-arrived-with closed his fist over the thing he had been holding. It seemed he was placated enough to listen further, but still suspicious. The other Jareth turned to me.

“After our picnic, and the following activities, the Jareth who you woke up with this morning will go back to his kingdom and discover that he double-booked himself today. He will re-order time so that he can make both engagements. Actually,” he said, turning to the other Jareth, “now that I’ve said that out loud, you’re probably remembering now instead, aren’t you?”

The Jareth I arrived with groaned and made a “damn” sort of gesture with his arms. “Those dwarves,” he said. “But we make it in time?” He asked this other Jareth. “Yes,” other Jareth said. “We finish quite quickly. Quickly enough that you’re still here when I go to transport back to the castle, pulling me to this point rather than my intended destination. My own fault, really. I was thinking I’d rather go back to Sarah. Must have been the nudge the magic needed to bring me here instead.”

“So -- you’re Jareth, from the future?” I say, putting my knife away.

He nodded. “Only about six hours,” he said.

“And both of you being here won’t cause -- a time paradox or something? Implode reality?”

My Jareth blinked at me. Future Jareth laughed. “No, precious,” he said, taking my hand. “We’re supposed to play with time,” my Jareth added, taking the other.

I was surrounded.

“Oh god,” I said. “I can barely handle the one of you!”

“The feeling is mutual, dearest,” Present Jareth said. Before I could ask whether he was talking about me or himself, however, Future Jareth whispered something in Present Jareth’s ear, and both of them grinned.

And turned to me. In sync. Looking remarkably like sharks. Or wolves, maybe.

Or two Jareths with dirty things on their minds.

“Just how hungry are you, my lady?” Future Jareth asked. Too casually.

“Because there’s a mere two more hours before I need to go back in time to deal with a bunch of dwarves,” Present Jareth added. “And it seems to me -- to us -- that we have been presented with an opportunity.”

“Now, I can vouch for the privacy of these woods, my lady,” Future Jareth said. “Because nobody came within a mile of us the first time, when it was just two of us. So, how would you feel -”

“No. Absolutely not. I am struggling to believe that I let you persuade me to have sex in the woods the first time -- and in the _middle of the day_ \-- so there is no way I am having a threesome with you in a public place. Not. Happening.”

They both nodded at about the same time. “Your apartment, then,” Future Jareth said, and before I knew it, we were all there. Then there were suddenly a lot more mouths and hands on me than usual.

“Wait, wait! I didn’t agree to a threesome here either!”

They both pulled back, pouting.

It was all so, so disconcerting.

Then one of them -- I think it was Future Jareth -- just sort of started… stroking the other one.

And then that one kissed him in response.

Then they started undressing each other and I’m afraid it was all a bit too much for me.

Those two hours went a lot more quickly than you’d think.

“We’ll have to all do this again some time,” Present Jareth said before pulling his clothes on and doing a spot of time travelling to go meet some dwarves. I didn’t realise the joke -- he was about to experience all of this again in a few hours -- until after he’d left.

I whacked Future Jareth -- who I suppose was the only Jareth, now -- in the arm. “What was that for?” he asked.

“That was a terrible joke!”

“Well, I was quite tired,” he smirked at me.

And kissed me.

And I kissed him back.

One Jareth seemed a lot easier to handle after that.

 

 


	12. Wedding planning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I realised I posted this up like a year ago on the Labyfic community at LifeJournal (we're moving to Dreamwidth now) but never posted it here. It was written in response to the prompt "photo album" - when I found out that there was an official Labyrinth photo album released in the 80s, I knew what I had to do...

“What are you doing tomorrow, Sarah?”

I had grown to be vaguely suspicious of these sorts of questions. Jareth always sounded a little too casual when he asked them.

“I’m guessing you’re about to tell me…”

“Oh, well… I just thought we might like to scout out locations and so on … for the wedding photography…”

“Wait, what?”

“Well, I may have organised us a few meetings -- with the wedding planner and the couturiers and the chef and so on.”

Then he grinned a big grin that showed all his pointy teeth. He was positively gleeful.

I thought about quietly doing a google search on my phone for “Groomzilla” while he said something about floral arrangements tying in with the flowers on the cake, and what size thrones we should have made up for the reception, but I stopped him when he started talking about commemorative plates.

“Do the majority of your subjects even eat off plates?” I demanded. He looked pained. Then I remembered that one of my tutors, Maria, had a commemorative mug from the wedding of Princess Diana and Prince Charles that she used ironically, and told him that I wanted a wedding, not a circus.

He peppered my face with kisses at this pronouncement. He was clearly in a wonderful mood that even my Negative Nancy outburst couldn’t chip away at.

“We start with the wedding planner and the photographer. I told them we’d meet them at that coffee place you like, at 10.”

I rolled my eyes and wiggled my head in a “you win” sort of way.

I may have dreamt of armies of goblins wearing wedding veils attacking Tokyo that night.

Ok, no, I didn’t, but that would have been funny. And fitting.

Both the photographer and the wedding planner looked so chic, the next morning, sitting around in my favourite cafe I really didn’t know what to say to them at first. One was male and one was female but I didn’t know which was which. Neither had an actual camera on them. I didn’t even know if they were human. I didn’t know what they knew. I really should have made Jareth brief me on these people but it just hadn’t occurred to me before this moment. It still all felt a bit unreal.

The pair saw us and leapt up, and didn’t sit down again until we sat down.

“The Lady Sarah,” Jareth said to them, tragically, by way of an opening, “doesn’t want commemorative plates.”

The pair looked at each other with wide eyes for a moment.

“Well, as the Lady Sarah wishes,” the male one said eventually, “What about an official photo album, at least?”

Everyone looked at me.

“Um,” I said.

“The thing is, your majesty,” the female added, once it was clear she wouldn’t be interrupting me, “if official memorabilia is not released, the people may take matters in their own hands. You remember what happened last time.”

Jareth’s eyes were suddenly slits. He had gone completely still.

“What happened last time?” I asked loudly.

The pair looked at each other with wide eyes again. Then the woman threw herself at Jareth’s feet, clinging to his leg. “A thousand pardons, your highness! I throw myself upon your mercy!”

“Oh get up,” he said, shoving her back into her chair, while I looked around to see what everyone else in the café was making of this display. Oddly, nobody was paying the least attention. Not even the staff.

“I’d like a coffee,” I said abruptly, and attempted to make my way to the counter. Turned out we were in some sort of bubble that I couldn’t make my way out of. “Ahem?” I said.

I refused to sit back down until I had a caffeinated beverage to fortify me. I took my first sip, and, sufficiently strengthened, said, “What happened last time?”

Jareth sighed a longsuffering sort of sigh and handed me a slim volume out he had pulled of nowhere, muttering, “You would have seen it eventually, I suppose.”

It was a collection of images of my original trip through the labyrinth.

“How did they get these?” I demanded. “Were photographers following me?!”

“Oh, no, my lady," the woman said. "That would have been too vulgar. The labyrinth is not one of your human reality television shows. No, they used magic.”

“Clearly,” I said, looking at a shot of my teenage self, threatening Jareth with a broom at some point after he had appeared in my parent’s bedroom. “I certainly don’t remember this bit.”

“Well, no, sometimes the magic doesn’t work quite right and things that merely might have happened appear. Either way, this book only exists because the king -- ah, that is, there were no proper commemorative items released, acknowledging that an important event had occurred."

“I was busy,” Jareth said narkily. “Any it really didn’t occur to me that my subjects would want souvenirs of the time we lost to a teenage girl.”

“You mean the woman who is right here?” I snapped. “Anyway, why do people always underestimate teenage girls? Do you even have any understanding of what teenagers go through?”

Jareth’s eyes snapped, but before he could say anything, the male spoke up again. “Oh, weddings,” he said in a campy, jovial manner. “You don’t know how many clients I see at these meetings, arguing about the past when really they’re just nervous about the future. Why, even at the latest elven royal couple’s engagement party -- oh, but it wouldn’t do to tell tales. Let’s just say, Lady Sarah, you aren’t the first future queen to object to something she considered “OTT”. That’s what you humans call it, right? Now, I don’t think we’ve actually been properly introduced. I’m Ray, I’ll be your wedding planner, and this is Sherie, and she’s the only photographer I can possibly do any decent work with. And here’s my scrapbook of ideas for your special day!”

He didn’t just have a scrapbook. He had Pinterest boards that he pulled up on a tablet. And he had fabric samples and colour swatches and foliage. Actual foliage.

And it was all excellent.

And the photographer’s sample work? It was actually great, despite her personal tendency towards melodrama. Nothing was cheesy or clichéd or made me want to vomit.

Our lunch, which went well past sunset by the way, was some sort of never-ending tasting platter featuring sample dishes from some of the best fairy and human chefs around. And while we ate, you wouldn’t have believed the gorgeous clothes paraded past me on much-too-attractive models, like I was in some sort of 50s Marilyn Monroe movie. Jareth and I had managed not to argue throughout all of this right up until the point when he actually specifically outlined how many costume changes he expected. It appeared to be a seven that was more like eight. I told him I expected to wear one outfit the whole time -- two, max -- and that he could change his clothes as many times as he wanted but under no circumstances would I be participating in this clotheshorsing.

He conceded the point gracefully.

In fact, the whole day turned out to be extremely pleasant. A bit too pleasant, actually.

I really should have known to be more suspicious by now.


End file.
